September 27, 2007	Thursday	Ramazan 14, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Sept 26: Pakistan earned $143.7 million during the first six months of 2007 from foreign tourist arrivals which numbered 0.557 million between January and June.

The government has set a target of one million tourist arrivals during the “Visit Pakistan year 2007.”

Dr Shahzad Qaiser, Secretary Ministry of Tourism, told Dawn that the foreign exchange receipts registered an increase of 15.1 per cent over the corresponding period of 2006, while tourist arrival increased by 7.7 per cent during the period. There is a trend of higher tourist arrivals during the third and fourth quarter of the year, and “we are expecting the same consistent trend to continue during this year,” he said.

“World Tourism Day” is being observed on Thursday with “Tourism opens doors for women” as its theme, which highlights an issue of fundamental importance for the future of tourism. It is a sector that not only employs significant number of women but also provides enormous opportunities for their advancement.

In Pakistan, the tourism industry has witnessed a tremendous growth during the period 2004-2006 despite negative travel advisories against Pakistan by many countries, Dr Qaiser maintained.

Tourists arrival increased from 0.50 million in the year 2003 to 0.89 million in 2006, showing an impressive growth of 7.9 per cent. An amount of Rs146.135 million was spent on development projects in addition to Rs30 million on promotional activities, according to statistics released by the ministry.

The ministry also fixed a target for enhancing international tourist arrivals from 898,000 in 2006 to one million in 2007. During the last three years, Pakistan participated in over 40 targeted international tourism events in the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to market tourism products and promote soft image of the country.

However, little attention has been paid to promote domestic tourism. While the government has taken measures to attract foreign tourists, there are no incentives for domestic tourism. Budget hotels and transportation play the key role in promotion of tourism, and these factors keep away domestic tourists from tourist resorts.

The year 2007 started on a higher than expected note for global tourism. From January through April, international tourist arrivals worldwide rose by over 6 per cent to 252 million, representing an additional 15 million arrivals as against the same period in 2006, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer.

Asia and the Pacific (+9 per cent) achieved the strongest growth, followed by Africa (+8 per cent), the Middle East (+8 per cent) and Europe (+6 per cent). Although arrivals to the Americas (+4 per cent) showed the slowest growth rate among the world regions during the first four months of 2007, this performance is nevertheless very positive as the region doubled the 2007 forecast growth (+2 per cent).

Though these results are limited to the first months of the year, and growth generally tends to be slower in the upcoming traditional Northern Hemisphere high season, the World Tourism Organisation is confident that worldwide growth in excess of four per cent forecast for 2007 will be achieved, barring any unforeseen negative events over the remainder of the year.

With economic growth expected at almost 5 per cent for 2007 and again for 2008, which would be the fifth consecutive year of growth above the long-term average, increased economic prosperity is certainly one of the main reasons behind such high level of confidence.