India has a lot of going for it in regards to attracting Chinese tourists: a massive wealth of historical sites, rich culinary traditions, and proximity that reduces travel costs. Yet, despite the number of Chinese tourists traveling to other Chinese neighbors like Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan growing unabated, India’s Chinese tourist arrivals remain relatively low. 2016 saw only 251,313 Chinese tourists travel to India.
On a recent trip to China to help facilitate Chinese tourist growth, Alphons noted that there just aren’t enough qualified tourism personnel in India capable of speaking Mandarin. Unfortunately, most Chinese tourists are incapable of speaking English, and many tours have had to employ the services of around 300 unlicensed Chinese-speaking tour guides. Many of these unlicensed guides do not have university degrees and thus are unable to qualify for a tour guide license. Moreover, their language skills may not be sufficient to lead Chinese tour groups.
In the short term, tour groups may be India’s best bet to increase the number of Chinese arrivals. Currently, India has no real profile as a tourist destination in the Chinese market, and outsourcing marketing and promotion to tourist agencies is a good first step.
More travelers mean more word-of-mouth marketing, which could also attract more lucrative free independent travelers (FIT). Fortunately, India allows Chinese citizens to apply for e-visas, making FIT travel a bit easier. While not as convenient as visa-free access, it’s nonetheless substantially easier than applying for a visa at an embassy or consulate.
Fundamentally, to make any of this happen India will need more qualified tour guides to lead groups.
India faces more fundamental obstacles to generating more Chinese tourist revenue that lack of tour guides
Of course, the lack of qualified tour guides isn’t the only thing India is struggling to overcome to attract more Chinese tourists. Infrastructure remains a serious issue for the country’s tourism industry. The speed and quality of the country’s rail systems remains poor, and the country only has around 100 airports. However, India may have its first high-speed route by 2022, and there are state plans to increase the number of airports by 150 to 200 by 2035.
Perhaps most significant are the continued Sino-Indian tensions over competing territorial claims along the mountainous border that separates the two countries. Many of these disputes have their origins in the borders established during period of British colonial rule and the Qing Empire in China. China and India fought a brief war in 1962 over the disputed territory, and there was a military standoff between the two countries last year over a construction project at Doklam.
In short, it does not seem likely they will be resolved anytime soon and Chinese authorities routinely use tourism as a means of compelling its neighbors to tow their line in regards to similar disputes, like South Korea and Taiwan. India and China, as rising global players, have both expanded efforts to assert themselves regionally. With their competing political and territorial interests, diplomatic conflicts may be inevitable and pose a potential risk to increasing the number of tourist arrivals.
