Making A Difference

Traders, Not Tourists

Gunny-bag toting visitors from the former USSR are posing a problem for the tourism industry

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Traders, Not Tourists
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Till recently, the Indian Government gave a free rein to the shoppers but suddenly things are not as rosy as they used to be two months ago. The Customs and Central Excise have been asked to clear goods going out to the CIS countries on chartered flights only after an encashment certificate of $8 for every kilogramme is produced by the passengers. This means that the tourist has to prove that he or she has spent this amount for every kilo-gramme of goods taken out.

In addition to this, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has restricted the number of chartered flights from the CIS countries which land at Delhi's international airport. The operators of such flights have been asked to use the airports at Agra, Lucknow and Amritsar since Delhi is strapped for parking space. But these restrictions have not considerably reduced the inflow of tourists although tour operators say that Lahore and Dubai are now being seen as potentially better options.

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The typical no-nonsense Russian buyers who shop in Delhi come in by chartered flights, stay at the cheapest hotels possible and rush to the capital's shindy markets to pick up their sack loads of consumer goods—medicines, leather garments, electronic goods, cosmetics, clothes, shoes and what have you. These tourists don't mix business with pleasure and do not normally frequent bars and discotheques. According to an official of the ITDC-run Kani-shka Hotel, they are so tightfisted that they even buy their soft drinks from the stalls outside rather than order them in the hotel.

Kanishka and the five other ITDC hotels—Ashok, Samrat, Ranjit, Lodhi and Jan-path—in the capital are a hot favourite with the CIS tourists. Kanishka, for exam-ple, has 40 per cent of its rooms occupied by these East European guests during peak season. Even the heat of the Indian summer does not deter some of the shoppers from making a quick dash to Delhi. Says O.P. Ahuja, president of Holidaymakers, a tour and travel agency which handles CIS clients: "These people are no tourists but have come to make purchases. So they come throughout the year."

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A majority of the tourists are mere carriers for the mafia in their coun-tries. Airport officials point out that there is no other way one can explain the volume of goods taken back on each flight. Individual passengers are known to carry back as much as four to five quintals. These "tourists" are not one-time visitors, they make repeated trips. Some of them areknown to come back twice a month.

There are on an average 17 charters per week during the peak tourist season in winter. According to figures from the Ministry of Tourism, about 3,000 tourists from the CIS countries fly in every month. This, the airport authorities say, means that practically every chartered flight comes in with about a 40-per cent passenger load factor (60 per cent of the aircraft is kept free for cargo on the return flight). There have been instances of flights coming in with as few as four passengers. The airport authorities obviously do not take kindly to charters with less than 15 passengers. Says the DGCA Chairman, H.S. Khola: "These charters have to abide by certain norms. We keep a strict eye on their operations."

The airport authorities are particularly peeved by the CIS charters. Not only do these aircraft overstay the six-day stipulated period but the crew and passengers are known to flex their muscles at uncooperative staff. In one such incident last year, there was a scuffle between customs offi-cials and tourists following a delay in clearing their baggage. Since then, a separate counter has been opened for charter passengers to check in their gunny bags. This is to avoid inconvenience to regular passengers who are obviously not as cargo-loaded as the Russians are. Now the charter tourists are allowed only restricted entry into the main terminal with their personal baggage.

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One other problem is, when the flights which have brought them in fail to get-clearance to land in time from onward destinations in Dubai or Lahore, the passengers who have checked out of their hotels stay in the visitors' lounge of the airport. Sometimes the clearance comes after a day or two and managing the Russians is not an easy task for the airport authorities. This is one reason why many of the charters have been denied permission to land at Delhi and have been asked to land at other airports.

The only thing going in favour of theRussians is the fact that they bring in foreign exchange. Going by government strictures, tourists coming in by charters can spend a maximum of six nights in the country and have to spend a minimum of $350 during their stay. This money accounts for their hotel and travel expenses.

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IN fact, the East European visitors' budgets tend to be much bigger. While some of them make full use of the $10,000that all tourists can bring in undeclared, there are others who are financed by Indian agents working on behalf of the syndicates in the CIS countries. The recent regulation of producing encashment cer-tificates was introduced primarily to break the Indian operators. Tourism officials feel that now the chartered tourist has no other option but to spend the dollars

However, according to insiders in the tourist trade, there are still many loopholes to be plugged. For one, there is heavy under-invoicing of goods enabling the tourist to buy more for the dollars spent. The balance is paid in rupees by the Indian agent who acts on behalf of the East European syndicates and is compensated adequately. One leading government-owned travel agency is known to be charging a 10-per cent cut for issuing encash-ment certificates. This helps the tourist show that he has spent dollars.

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The open sky policy of the government of the early '90s has helped fuel the boom in chartered tourists from the former East Bloc. India is seen as an inexpensive destination to access a good consumer market. And there is no shortage of suppliers. They usually belong to markets that deal with wholesale goods and have addresses that are not frequented by the normal middle-class buyers. One such place is the Gandhinagar market in Shahadra, afavourite hangout of operators. Certain other marketplaces in the capital like the Palika market near R.K. Puram, a predominantly government colony in south Delhi, or certain shopping areas in Safdarjung Enclave cater exclusively to the CIS clientele. Even the names of the shops and their cataloguing is done in Russian, pointers that the invisible trade is going strong.

Just how much has the travel trade grown in the CIS countries? Before the break-up of the Soviet Union, there were only three tour operators in the USSR. Intourist handled pleasure tourists, Sputnik managed students and youth groups, and there was a third which handled travels of trade union offi-cials. Today there are close to 20,000 such travel agencies. People of the CIS countries have learnt to travel more, buy more and earn more.

Since 1993, about 80,000 tourists from the erstwhile Soviet Bloc countries have visited India. This is more than the traffic from any country other than the UK, US, France, Germany and Japan. But officials of the Ministry of Tourism predict that there will be a drop in the coming years. However, the travel trade believes that any significant slide can take place only if the CIS countries resume normal trade relations. Before the break-up of the USSR, the trade between the two countries was about $4 billion.

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And while the Russians are exploring new markets in Lahore and Dubai, they cannot strike out India completely simply because the number of shoppers travelling to make money is increasing and part of this traffic will inevitably find its way to India. So, despite the fact that Hindi-Russi Bhai Bhai is the tenor of the market, the Indian authorities would like to keep a closer watch on their red-necked brothers.

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