Poor roadways denting prospect of tourism development
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: May 26, 2022 -

NOTWITHSTANDING, the inclement weather condition causing inconveniences to the tourists, who trooped to Ukhrul district for the much-missed Shirui Lily Festival, the event if packaged and organised properly has great potential to put the entire state on the global tourism map.

With exception of the northeast region and a handful of states along the Himalayan region, the entire country normally faces searing heat wave at this time of the year.

As such, the Shirui Lily festival provides one of the greatest opportunities to the government of Manipur to attract tourists from mainland India and vigorously promote the tourism sector.

For the local tourists too, the four-day event organised by the Tourism Department in association with different enterprises, open up the chance to enjoy the pleasant weather condition in the hill district, explore the scenic landscape and revel in the various entertainment and recreational programmes organised as components of the festival.

The fact that the fourth edition of the festival will be held after a hiatus of two years due to outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, makes the event even more enticing, especially youngsters from different parts of the state to groove to the performances by the musical bands invited for the festival's ShiRock, watch the models walk the ramp, taste local delicacies and take part in adventure activities.

As stated by Tourism director W Ibohal, this year's Shirui Lily festival will have football match and break dance competition for boys as new additions apart from conduct of the calendar 'She-Chef' competition for girls, which provides rare opportunity to those eyeing to join the hospitality industry to exhibit their culinary skills.

Another event likely to draw huge crowd will be showcasing of the endangered Tangkhul dog breeds under the aegis of the Department of Veterinary as owing pet dogs has become a fashion statement in the state of late.

Moreover, increase in the tourist footfall would automatically benefit the local business community due to spike in sale of goods while many an individual could earn additional income by extending basic home-stay facilities.

On their part, the Tourism Directorate and the Transport Department have done the needful to make everybody enjoy and access the festival with arrangement made for travelling to Ukhrul district from the state's capital in buses throughout the four days.

Regardless of all these exhaustive preparations, absence of an all-weather road at-least till the district's headquarters might just undo all the good works.

Unmistakably, the state's tourism potential generally comes to the fore during celebration of the World Tourism Day, when the Sangai Tourism Festival is round the corner and publicity gathers pace for the Shirui Lily festival.

While it needs no reminding that the tourism sector helps in leveraging economy of any country or region, one cannot expect much of a difference on account of the existing ordinary tourism infrastructure, the poor condition of the roads in particular.

Thus, it's not surprising that Manipur hasn't been able to take advantage of even a minuscule portion of its vast potential for development of tourism industry, in-spite of the tourism sector considered to require minimal investment compared to other sectors.