Posted By : Admin

Pakistan was once a tourist hub. In the 1960s and 1970s tourism industry saw its prime time in tourism.

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The reason for the downfall of the tourism industry was not other than the unpreparedness of the Pakistan Tourism Development Company (PTDC). Pakistan is blessed naturally with diverse beauty and astonishing cultural heritage. The rich culture of Pakistan, beautiful hill stations, romantic lakes and the tallest mountains were once adored and still are by the people around the globe. These places are misty eyed on their condition and are waiting for tourists.

Terrorism has played a major role in harming the tourism culture as well. Attacks on the tourists resulted in travel advisories by the countries to their citizens. In 2016, the condition grew so worse that the UK Foreign Office advised their citizens not to visit certain areas of Pakistan such as tribal areas, districts of Kohat, Lakki and lower Dir, northern Baluchistan, western Baluchistan and Karakoram highway between Islamabad and Gilgit.

India, which is our neighbouring country and has almost the same issues in the country is working hard on its tourism industry and has risen the earnings and the number of tourists  by 5.4 percent and that’s a major increase. Pakistan should implement measures and pave way for people who want to see the beauty of Pakistan. Unfortunately, top toring websites now like https://www.lonelyplanet.com/, have shown a big step towards damaging the tourism industry of Pakistan further. It says that because of security issues in the country, people are advised by the foreign governments that they should abstain from all kinds of travel and tours to the country. Adding more fuel to the fire, they state that the travel insurance which the foreign governments offer will become invalid if the people do not follow their advice. The reason they stated is political violence.

It has become a far cry to bring back the lost tourism to the country back and that too for the good of it. It will take ample time to regain the trust in the tourists eyes and also in the eyes of the foreign governments. To revive our tourism, it is necessary that we first promote the beautiful places of Pakistan and ask the citizens of Pakistan to visit these places. This will let the people who have a bad image of the industry to regain their trust in the security of the country. Revenue will also be generated which can be used for renovation which has become necessary for the current development of the tourist industry.

About 80 million Pakistanis travel for tourism within the country. But the PTDC was not prepared for this boom. PTDC has failed as an organization as it cannot finance itself and is always looking for te Federal Government for finances. It should now focus on facilitating domestic tourism at all costs so that it has its own good income.

Pakistan Tourism sights are rich enough to earn billions from this business. The locals of these areas are trying their best to accommodate tourists from within the country and that is a very appreciable stance by them. The major issues which the domestic tourists face these days are transportation and facilitation. In the past few years, many private tourist companies have offered their services for facilitating tours and introducing attractive packages. They also offer transportation which has paved the way for tourists who do not afford to take their own car on these places because of terrain and other issues.

The good news is that PTDC and Pakistan Railways have started a joined venture in which they will be running a train from Rawalpindi to Karachi which will be named as Sada Salamat Pakistan and this will help promote tourism within the country.

The international tourists have the excuses of political instability, poverty, terrorism in the country. But these cannot keep us from moving forward. We can show the world the strength from within the country. There are still people who are international citizens and Pakistan is on their wish list. This difficult child of South Asia is also yearning for their travel in its inside. We can only wish that the government takes respective steps in revitalizing the tourism industry and investing in it.