Kashmir has been famous for the hospitality of its people through out the whole world. Tourists have always developed extremely good relations with local people and there are many instances of repeat tourism. In fact one of the main reasons for the popularity of the House Boat has been the service provided by the family owning these hotels floating on water. Foreigners have been very fond of this family touch absent in large commercial type of hotels where there is hardly any chance of close human interaction. However, being good hosts is not the only requirement for any top class destination. The facilitation and servicing in the field of tourism has been taken to such professional levels that its absence can be a great disadvantage in attracting tourists and in keeping them tied to a particular destination. The first and foremost is the attitude of people both in general and in particular of the persons getting into direct contact with tourists at different points during their visit. In fact right from the first entry the behaviour and attitude of the people dealing with tourists is the decisive factor for the image of a destination. A tourist should not only feel welcome but should also have the satisfaction of being in a very friendly atmosphere. This is especially true for the first time visitors who are arriving in a new destination and are somewhat tense. They need to be put at ease immediately on arrival. They should never get the impression that the persons receiving them are there to take away their money. This has been a frequent complaint of tourists visiting Kashmir especially in the arrival areas of different mountain resorts. They are jostled and mobbed as if they are being preyed upon by the service providers. This may be because of the set back which the tourism had received during the years of turmoil and the tourist traders are in great haste to make whatever money they can from the limited arrivals. However, this complaint has been there even when the arrivals were at a peak. That time it was alleged that the problem is due to seasonality of the industry and the people connected with it have to earn in three months for the entire year. The pestering of tourists has been so common that the state had to enact a law to make it a cognizable and a non-bail able offence which fact is not known to many visitors. Even a large number of the members of the police force itself do not know about this stringent section of the J & K Registration of Tourist Trade Act 1978/82. However, such behaviour cannot be controlled by the enforcement of legislation alone. It needs change of mindset of the people dealing with tourists. One has to make people understand that the tourist constitutes the bread and butter of not only the person dealing with him directly but of a large chunk of the population indirectly involved in sustaining this industry. This is where the Human Resource Development gets involved with this industry considered to be the third most important segment of our economy after Agriculture and Horticulture. Tourist friendly attitude and behaviour have to be developed at all levels apart from the specialised training which may be required by various players involved in looking after the guests in different areas. There are many methods and training programmes available for attitudinal and behavioural training. Lufthansa had developed a special programme called TACT (Transactional Analysis for Customer Treatment) which was based on the famous book, “I AM OK, YOU ARE OK”, by Richard Harris. The employees of the airline were given training in recognising the mental state of their customers through various behavioural signs and then deal with them accordingly so as to avoid any emotional outbursts and put them at ease during their travel. Similar programmes for dealing with customers are now used by many organisations and institutions having public dealings. We too need such short term training programmes for Taxi Drivers, Receptionists, Booking Clerks, Waiters, Salesmen, and so on. In fact, we may have to train our policemen especially those dealing with tourists. In this connection, the personnel involved in Airport Security need to be given a special training in handling departing tourists with extreme tact so as to ensure their repeat visits. The members of the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) posted at the airports outside our state seem to have already been given such training. They do their job meticulously with a disarming smile!

After the attitudinal and behavioural training comes the specialised servicing for various professional jobs in different constituents of the hospitality industry. It has been often observed that the front office services in various organisations are not really up to the mark. Secondly, the waiters working in various accommodation units are not fully trained. Some high end hotels may be employing trained personnel but generally these services in average accommodation units and eating places leave a lot to be desired by way of professionalism. In some of the top class hotels even hotel management graduates start at waiter’s level. Laying a table and serving food also needs appropriate training. It should not be difficult even to train already existing in service staff. The state has a national level Institute of Hotel Management but it has not been made fully operational. There are so many disciplines in which trainings could be imparted. These include hotel services, guiding courses, tour conductor training, ticketing, receptionists, and front office handlers etc. It should be the endeavour of the industry to employ very well trained staff for various services as well as get their already in service staff trained in different disciplines. The Government should fully assist the industry in imparting this training by providing financial support and technical expertise.

Next is the professionalism within the organisation responsible for supervising this activity from the Government side. In the present scientific and advanced set up different sectors in tourism require specialised knowledge and expertise. There are experts in Tourism Planning. Publicity and Marketing is taken care by highly specialist agencies. Tourism infrastructure needs highly qualified and experienced consultants. Regulation of the trade needs legal experts. There are two ways to ensure this professionalism. First is to have experts of related fields to man various positions in the department. Even if the head of the department is a senior officer from the state administration, he can have a group of experts under him who will not be shifted at random but should have sufficient time to implement various plans and monitor the progress of these. In the alternative, the department can have a panel of experts and agencies relevant to different activities on a long term basis for advice and consultancy. In addition, the department should ensure induction of tourism professionals through various recruiting agencies at the entry levels both in gazetted as well as non-gazetted cadre. The in service officials should be continuously sent for refresher courses within the country and abroad. In these columns it has been mentioned that Winter Tourism and Adventure Sports have a great future in the state. For all these activities there is requirement of trained persons both for conducting the same as well as regulating the private sector. This sector has a huge potential for employment of technically trained personnel both in the private as well as state sector. The improvement in situation is bound to result in increased tourism related activities. To cater for this increase attention has to be paid to up gradation of existing and establishment of new infrastructure but while doing so one has to keep in mind the urgency of paying attention to Human Resource Development. Otherwise, the efforts in developing new infrastructure have a tendency to get negated by lack of professionalism in services. For optimum results both have to go hand in hand.

The author is the former Director General Tourism, J & K, and can be mailed at:
ashrafmjk@gmail.com.