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INDIA’S
taxi drivers are being told to wash and shave more often and to
avoid sleeping in their cabs at night as part of a government
campaign to boost the country’s tourist industry.
The cab
clean-up is at the heart of a national charm offensive to increase
the number of foreign visitors.
Renuka
Chowdhury, the tourism minister, wants India to lose its reputation
as a dirty, disease-ridden destination that offers poor service and
crumbling infrastructure.
To
implement her vision she has raised this year’s tourism budget to
£96m, from £61m last year.
“We need
to wake up,” Chowdhury said. “If we want to be regarded as a future
superpower, we can’t have all this filth, people spitting and
defecating and beggars shoving their diseased limbs in your face. If
I have to be schoolmarmish, I will be, but we must clean up our
cities.”
Among her
targets is the chaos outside Delhi airport when an international
flight lands. Cabbies lunge at bewildered passengers to get a fare,
drive them by the longest route to their hotel and charge up to 500
times the true rate.
Visitors
will instead be given a traditional namaste greeting, with the palms
pressed together in front of the chest, and be escorted to a
fragrant vehicle equipped with mineral water, tissues and a
prominently displayed charter of customer rights.
The
inspiration is an ancient Sanskrit phrase chosen by the tourism
ministry as a symbol of the new India — “Guest is God”.
In Delhi
and six other cities, 26,000 taxi drivers have already been through
the course. Many, like Ishwar Singh, 50, who works in the capital,
are convinced of its benefits. “They told me that by providing a
better service, I would get better tips and people coming back,”
said Singh. “I’ve already had passengers taking my number and then
calling me from their hotel later.”
By the end
of this year about 128,000 porters, immigration staff, tour guides,
souvenir shop assistants and restaurant waiters will also have been
given lessons in personal hygiene and courtesy.
According
to the World Travel and Tourism Council, Indian tourism is the third
fastest growing in the world and is expected to generate about £70
billion in economic activity over the next 10 years, creating 26m
jobs.
Last year
3.4m foreign tourists visited, mostly from Britain and Europe. The
figure is 26% up on 2003 but is tiny compared with Thailand’s 12m.
The
government is building more roads and airports and also plans to
provide about 100,000 more hotel rooms by 2010 to cope with the
expected surge in visitors.
Most of
the new accommodation will be in budget establishments — helping to
fill a gap between five-star hotels and backpackers’
hostels. | 
