Media can promote tourism by projecting a destination and it can also destroy a destination by negative publicity. Inherently, both these can be complementary and not contradictory. It is only a matter of understanding the intricacies of each activity and then establishing a working relationship. All over the world tourism organisations both in the government and the private sector use various organs of media, the print as well as electronic, to acquaint people at large about the attractions as well as facilities available in different tourist resorts. It is through media that the products of tourism are marketed in different potential markets. Quite often for this purpose media campaigns are run on seasonal and sometimes on year round basis. These campaigns are used for branding of the products. Some of these ad campaigns on the electronic media cost millions of dollars. In fact, there are some exclusive magazines and journals catering exclusively to different aspects of tourism. Thus, tourism to a large extent depends upon the numerous branches of media for its promotion and development. Some of the important campaigns carried out for branding include the “Incredible India!”, “Malaysia, Truly Asia”, and “Kerala, God’s Own Country”. In our state we had launched two important campaigns in mid-nineties. These were “Ladakh, the Land of Celebrations!”, and “Jammu, You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!” Both these campaigns were launched for destination promotion as opposed to region promotion due to disturbed conditions in the valley. These campaigns helped the tourism inflow into both the places. In fact, the Ladakh Festival which is held every year from 1st to 15th September was introduced in 1993 to extend the season. The ad campaign was to project the Festival and was very successful.

Let us now take the other side. It is again the media which can completely dry up tourism to a particular destination by over projection of some uncertain situation prevalent in its vicinity. No doubt, tourism is basically a peace time activity yet these days there is hardly any part of the world which is not subjected to one or the other kind of trouble and disturbance. Unfortunately, the media especially the electronic one, has become these days very sensational and every news item is dramatised beyond limits. Sometimes the breaking news continues for hours together. In fact, some news items are handled like one day cricket matches which result in creating panic among potential visitors. Once the reputation of a destination is spoiled by too much negative publicity, it is difficult to convince visitors about re-visiting the place. In a number of destinations like ski resorts and beach areas repeat tourism is very important. To maintain the flow the media has to play a positive role. One cannot stop media from reporting adverse happenings. Any thing unusual is news. It is said that if a dog bites a man no body bothers but if a man bites a dog, it is news. However, a responsible journalist has to give objective reporting without giving any twist or angle. In addition, it is also important to give exact location of a happening. This helps people in knowing whether the place they are planning to visit is safe. Generalised panic about incidents virtually closes an entire region sometimes even though the problem may be limited to an isolated spot. The typical example of this the panic created by the media is the news about the outbreak of plague in Gujarat some years back. It created such a disturbance that a number of Airlines stopped operating to India. Ultimately it was discovered that no plague had broken out. Similarly, closure of civil airport in Srinagar for three days in May, 1999 during the Kargil clash scared away thousands of tourists from Kashmir. Recently after the Mumbai attacks, a number of European Foreign Offices advised their nationals to suspend all travel to India. The media coverage had scared every one and they thought the entire country was involved in terrorism. The Lahore attack on Sri Lankan team is supposed to have ended the future of cricket in Pakistan.

To keep a tourist destination in the right perspective, the tourism authorities have to be in continuous contact with the media. They have to be pro-active and not reactive. They must give exact details of incidents and disturbances with exact locations in order to prevent generalised panic. Hiding facts or downplaying these does not help. On the contrary projecting the normal situation in other areas in spite of trouble in a particular area can be very helpful in preventing a general panic. Based on media reports, foreign offices of many countries issue adverse travel advisories completely shutting out countries and sometimes entire regions. Such advisories are sometimes biased and prejudiced. These can be countered by pro-active tourism authorities. During Kargil war the Asian Age newspaper carried the front page banner as “IAF bombs Kargil heights”. On the same page below this story was a headline, “Rush of tourists to Kashmir valley”. Similarly, the Time magazine carried a cover story, “War in Kargil” but inside there was a full page despatch titled, “War in the mountains, calm in the valley!” Some similar stories about visit of foreigners to Kashmir at the peak of militancy were carried by the New York Times, Travel Asia, and other newspapers. Their theme was the persistence of Kashmir Tourism authorities in projecting the valley as a tourist destination in spite of uncertain situation. This was possible due to proactive role of tourism authorities. Some years back we used to have regular interaction between the media and the tourism authorities but this seems to have been given up during last few years. In fact, during the Annual Convention of Travel Agents Association of India in Mumbai I 2000 the best performance in tourism marketing was awarded by the organisers. Kashmir came third after Kerala and Rajasthan. The jury gave the third place to Kashmir because the state tourism department had kept the tourism flag flying in spite of the most difficult conditions.

It has been observed that on the insistence of local politicians the media has been projecting revival of tourism as the barometer of political normalcy in the state. This has been creating many problems especially when the politicians come on electronic media to take credit for this. Tourism should be normally taken as any other economic activity such as handicraft trade and many other similar commercial activities. In fact, it is taken all over the world to be the largest export industry. Countries earn millions of dollars in foreign exchange without exporting anything except goodwill and some souvenirs. Tourists continue to visit some of the hot spots like Israel (Jerusalem), Beirut (Lebanon), and some other places in South America without local politicians coming on their TV networks to claim return of normalcy. In Kashmir the politicisation of tourism has resulted in many ugly incidents in which a number of innocent tourists lost their lives. Once the local politicians hype the tourist activities on local TV channels there is always a backlash. During late nineties when tourism had started fully reviving there was no projection in the media both print and electronic within the state. There is absolutely no point in raising local hype. This has to be understood both by the tourism authorities and the media. There is need for interaction between the media and tourism authorities. Most of these things can be sorted out in a conference of the top media stalwarts and the captains of tourism industry. There has never been a national level interaction on the subject and in view of the uncertain situations propping up off and on, such an event is the need of the hour. The state tourism department could co-sponsor this event with some news group. One of the most typical examples of this media-tourism co-operation could be seen during the 9/11 episode. The crumbling of both the world trade centre towers was seen live by millions of people all over the world. However, no one ever showed any photographs or video of dead bodies or the human remains of the tragic event. The media did not want to create a panic and served the national interest of America by respecting the sentiments of the local people. Let us hope that we too can work out a similar relationship between the media and tourism!