Fraudia’s comment in the other thread made me start a whole new topic here. When I was a kid, back in the 80s, we used to get alot of tourists in Pakistan, particularly from Europe. My dad was a German language professor, we alot of German tourists used to contact him due to the language barrier, and a lot of them even used to stay at our place, and then go all the way upto the Northern Areas as we were located in the footsteps of the himalayas, Islamabad. They would also take 2-3 days to goto Taxila to visit the ancient civilization that still lives there, in the form of Jolian and Sriccup. They were fascinated with the beauty of Pakistan, especially in the north and its cultural heritage, and being the adventurous people that they were, loved every bit of it. It was so different, I even remember this 20 year old Canadian girl who came from vancouver all alone on a trip to India, Pakistan, and she even stayed with us, and though I was very little at that time, I now find it hard to imagine how someone like her openly came to our country without any fears and roamed around without any fears.
There were considerable efforts on the part of the Government to promote tourism, namely the PTDC and TDCP, as they opened up resorts in very hard to enter places all over the north, as well as the interior. The rates were pretty reasonable too, and it was still a resort, considering we used to be so happy as kids when we were going to get to stay in a PTDC hotel. The toilets etc, even in the non-ptdc hotels there were always clean because the owners in gilgit, swat, hunza, naran etc knew that alot of foriegners were coming and it was essential.
However, in the early 90s, it started decreasing to a considerable extent. I do not blame the Government(s) for this, they subsequently kept on working to increase and maitain the infrastructure that they wanted for tourism, but the whole global thing that has now culminated into this reign of terror associated with any Muslim country got the best out of it. Now its almost down to nothing, and we hardly get tourists, and the ones we get are primarily during the basant season, and they no longer see the real beauty of Pakistan or trek upto the northern areas. There are still some brave adventurous souls who come and trek the slopes, like K2 etc. Just a few months ago there was a documentary about this famous rescue operation that the Pakistani armed forces carried out and rescued some austrians trapped in snow.
What do you guys think of the whole picture? What can be done to restore the faith of these tourists so that they start visiting Pakistan again? Its just really bad right now, and its not just Pakistan. The other day I was talking to this coworker of mine, who happens to be a very adventurous guy, and all of a sudden he told me he really wanted to visit Dubai but he was afraid of the law and order situation, and I was like ‘The law and order situation over there is almost perfect, infact ALOT better compared to the city we are in right now in the US’, and he didnt believe me, even after I showed him the 0% crime rate in Dubai, he was going by the percieved thought and word of mouth and wasnt convinced it was all that safe there.
Sometimes when I personally urge tourists here to go visit PAkistan, part of me thinks about what happened to DannyPearl, which is a scary thought, just like asking a person to go and poke a hornets nest, but part of me does not. What do you guys think of the whole picture? If there anything that can be done to improve the situation there, should we even be trying to promote tourism and revivie it and bring it back to what it was in the past?