In the first week of May, a Malaysian woman named Jamielah Binti Yaqoob arrived in Islamabad for an adventure of a lifetime in Gilgit-Baltistan. But her experience in Pakistan turned sour before it even began: she was deported by immigration officials for not holding a valid Pakistani visa.
The deportation is a tragedy of errors in itself.
Earlier this year, the interior ministry and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had sent a notification to tour operators, stating that on-arrival visas would be issued to nationals from Pakistan’s “tourism-friendly countries” if the tourists organised their visit through designated tour operators. Malaysia was among the 24 countries that qualified for this facility.
Jamielah’s arrival in Pakistan was facilitated by a registered tour operator in the country. When she contacted him for help at the Islamabad airport, he approached immigration authorities to inform them that the Malaysian national had arrived in Pakistan according to the policy laid out by the interior ministry. Immigration authorities, however, claimed that they had yet to receive such a notification. Jamielah was summarily deported.
Ahead of the announcement of a new tourism policy in Gilgit-Baltistan, Eos explores the roadblocks that have prevented the region’s immense economic promise from being realised
Unfortunate as it was, the episode succinctly captures the state of the tourism industry in Pakistan: tangled in disorder and departmental ad hocism.
DEPARTMENTAL CONFUSION
In principle, for a country with tourism potential, the tourism sector can become the engine of growth and development. The sector encapsulates far more than core hospitality and transportation functions. Tourism can be broadly subdivided into transportation, entertainment, recreation, retail, food and beverage, and accommodation. Investment in these six heads, in turn, produces better goods, more jobs, higher wages, more efficient services and, of course, more money in taxes.
But for these elements to come together, there ought to be a master plan, manned by a central authority, with everyone pulling in the same direction. And while other provinces are free to create their plans and set up their regulators, Gilgit-Baltistan is hampered by tourism still being run by the federal government.
In fact, it was the 18th Amendment of the Constitution that proved to be the death knell for the tourism industry in Gilgit-Baltistan. The amendment devolved the tourism portfolio to the provinces — powers were subsequently transferred to the other four provinces but, in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), tourism affairs were to be run from Islamabad, under the Federal Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan.