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5UNLOCKING THE OPPORTUNITIES OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ALONG SILK ROAD PATHWAY- CURRENT
TRENDS AND PROSPECTS
1Dr.Varsha Tanu, 2Dr.Kumar Ashutosh, 3Ms.Ayesha Siddique
1Associate Professor, IIHMR University, Jaipur. Associate Professor, department of Continuing Education and Extension, University of Delhi. Research Scholar, 3Department of Continuing
Education and Extension, University of Delhi. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13889200
Abstract. The historical Silk Road, once famous Asian network of trade routes that interconnected Asia with Europe and Africa, which was as significant as a pilgrimage to exchange ideas, commerce, or diplomacy. Ancient pathways in the Silk Road signified the highest potential for tourism development. Today also, it reflects diversity in historical, cultural, and heritage experiences. This paper assesses the opportunity for tourism development along the Silk Road, which focuses primarily on economic, social, and cultural advantages. It also discusses challenges regarding how to keep historical heritage authenticity, ensuring sustainability, and steering cooperation among countries sharing this glorious path. Examining both prospects and barriers, this study presents strategies to maximize tourism potential while minimizing associated risks.
Introduction
Tourism has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries of 21st century, singularly accounting for approximately 10% of global trade and 35% of the trade in services. This mega industry is now serving as the biggest source of foreign exchange earnings for more than three dozen countries. Tourism is currently the most important segment of the global economy as it is the fastest growing sector and it contributes significantly to national economy and to the socioeconomic development of any country.The potentiality is even greater when there is a prospect to develop tourism industry along the traditionally acclaimed historical routes like Silk Road.
A long-time passion of historians, travellers and culture lovers, the Silk Road has seemed to beckon dreams of exotic adventure for over two thousand years. As this gateway between East and West cradled the exchange of goods, ideas, and knowledge across nearly two millennia, its heritage offers a unique opportunity to pursue tourism extolling such resplendent history while fostering cultural dialogue and growth. The Silk Road, as a part of the tourism route, has multiple benefits among tourists-increasing the local economy through increased intra- and international tourism, improving people's lifestyles, saving cultural heritage, and sustainable travel. However, numerous countries involved in developing tourism activities and infrastructural limitations along with the threat of over-commercialization stand as major challenges. This paper aims to outline the opportunities and challenges facing tourism development along the Silk Road and discuss strategies for implementation.
Silk road is the most powerful brand since the history of mankind, because the trade route is already established. Tourism offers immense opportunities to the developing countries situated along the Silk route to fashion their development strategies around its promotion. Its contribution to promote any country's well-being by modernising of infrastructure, fostering social awareness, infusing positive outlook towards life, revival of unique traditions of art and craft, revaluation of heritage areas, improvement in health and hygiene conditions, injection of external purchasing
power into the host economy and supporting heritage conservation with regards to the host environment are the needs of the hour.
Fig. 1 Opportunities of Tourism Destination Development along the Silk Road
Every country situated along the Silk Road is blessed with immense tourism
resources and diversities with the exotic characteristics of culture and history, which gives to this route a supply side of advantages in tourism development. Yet the fact remains undebated that tourism industry is not developed uniformly despite its potentials. The concept of a Silk Road tourism project was first raised at UN Tourism's General Assembly in Indonesia in 1993 by UN Tourism, which was an early advocate to develop the tourism potentials of the Silk Road. Today, 33 Silk Road Member States (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, DPR Korea, Rep. Korea, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan,
Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan (as of February 2018)) from Europe, Africa, Central Asia and Asia & the Pacific, in addition to UN Tourism Affiliate Members from around the globe, who work together to promote the Silk Road routes as a trans-national tourism hot spots.
A significant body of research highlights the pivotal role of infrastructure in enhancing tourism along the Silk Road. Mamirkulova et al. (2020) discuss the opportunities presented by the New Silk Road infrastructure to foster a tourism environment that improves the quality of life for residents. They argue that strategic investments in infrastructure can lead to sustainable tourism development, enhancing the economic viability of regions along the Silk Road.
Additionally, Suocheng et al. (2015) outline sustainable economic development modes for the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), specifically noting the international tourism economic zone mode. Their findings suggest that integrating tourism into broader economic development strategies can yield substantial benefits for local economies, further emphasizing the need for effective infrastructure planning.
Cultural factors play a crucial role in tourist satisfaction and loyalty in Silk Road destinations. Research by Raimkulov et al. (2021) indicates that cultural attractiveness, the warm hospitality of local people, and well-developed superstructure are competitive attributes that significantly influence tourist satisfaction in Uzbekistan. These elements not only enhance the overall travel experience but also contribute to building long-term loyalty among tourists.
Moreover, this sentiment is echoed in the findings of Shehzad et al. (2019), who emphasize the transformative impact of information and communication technology (ICT) in China's tourism sector. The integration of ICT not only improves operational efficiency but also enriches the cultural experiences available to tourists, thereby enhancing their overall satisfaction.
Central Asia presents unique opportunities for tourism development, as highlighted by Kantarci et al. (2014). Their research identifies the cultural potential of the region alongside the challenges it faces. They argue that understanding the interests of international tourists is essential for developing effective tourism strategies. This aligns with the findings of a recent study that underscores the importance of addressing key trends and gaps in Central Asian tourism to formulate informed public policies and strategies.
The Silk Road: Enhancing Tourism and Heritage Connectivity, UNWTO Silk Road Program (2021): Focuses on the preservation and Development of cultural heritage resources and tourism's role in boosting sustainable economic development along the route.
Objectives
1.The paper aims to explore the status of tourism development along the Silk Road on the basis of review of the secondary resources available.
2. The paper also explores the potential of tourism development along the Silk Road from the perspectives of economic, social and cultural benefits of member countries along the route.
3.It also delves into the challenging factors to examine the barriers in terms of preserving its historical authenticity, ensuring sustainable growth and fostering cooperation among its member countries sharing common heritage.
4. With examining the potential factors and the challenges, the paper offers strategies to maximise the Silk Road's tourism prospects while mitigating the risk factors.
Encouraged by renewed interest to revive the ancient Silk Road for cultural exchange, trade and tourism. UNWTO decided to revive the ancient routes as a tourism concept, uniting three continents once more in a project encompassing over 12.000 km. The Silk Road, commonly known
as the first most popular ancient global trade route, had a scope and importance far greater than any other simple trade routes. The myriads of public movements on interconnected routes served as a catalyst for the fruitful exchange of arts, crafts, language, religion, cultures, ideas and technologies. Many important developments, which took place in fields ranging from mathematics and philosophy to architecture and astronomy, were only made possible because of pioneer travellers eager to explore beyond man-made boundaries and natural determinants. Building upon a natural and cultural wealth spanning thousands of years, the United Nations The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) made an effort to revive a route capable of transforming the way by collaborating in areas of mutual interest, Silk Road Member States and private sector tourism stakeholders to create new opportunities and tourism initiatives capable of promoting sustained and healthy growth.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has supported various initiatives to track tourism development along the Silk Road, though specific countrywide data may not be available, there are significant trends which reflect the overall rise in tourism in Silk Road countries, particularly Central Asia and parts of China, over the past few decades. An observed trend based on available data for key regions along the Silk Road from 2012 to 2022 have been discussed below:
Silk Road Tourism Development Indicators Over a Period of Ten Years (2012-2022):
During the last few years, there is a strong thrust on developing Silk Road Tourism as a brand. There are 34 participant countries in UNWTO tourism development program between 2010-2017 in which there is a strong network of public-private partnership established. The major focused strategies have been underlined as tourism diversification, Joint research and capacity building, forming an efficient tourism intelligence etc.
1. Expansion of the Inbound Tourism Market in last few decades
Within the Central Asian region consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan's borders, international tourist inflow increased at a high rate, as a result of the low visa barriers to entry and enhanced cultural promotion.
• Kazakhstan: From 2013, the tourism sector continued to register double digit growth at least until 2019. The number of international visitors reached about 4.9 million in 2013 and over 8 million in 2019.
• Uzbekistan: Foreign tourists increased considerably from approximately 2 million in 2015 to more than 6 million in 2019 due to the introduction of visa reforms and additional focus on historical cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara on the silk route.
• Kyrgyzstan: With respect to international tourism development, inbound visitation increased block by block with figures growing from 2.8 million in 2013 to 4.5 million in 2019, because of adventure and ecotourism promotion in the country.
• As per the UNWTO data, in the year 2017 61% tourists explored ancient Silk Road Cities,58% visitors visited UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the Silk Road,39% visitors attended
local festival and events and 39% of the visitors visited art galleries and museums.
• Belt and Road-- a vision and action document, launched at 8th UNWTO Silk Road Ministers Meeting in 2018 to include maritime Silk route. Originally it focused on Asia, which later progressed to two global trajectories:
a. The Silk Road Economic Belt
b. The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road
Both the trajectories are closely linked and evolving as an opportunity to product development strategy.
2. China's Contribution to Tourism Development along the Silk Road
Xi'an, located in China and regarded as the epicentre of the Silk Road, is another city that has proved to be favourable for international tourism. The year 2019 recorded incoming international visitors to China rose to almost 65 million travellers largely due to visits on the historic and cultural aspects of the Silk Road.
• Advances in tourism along the ancient Chinese Silk Road have been further promoted by major projects, which are part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
• Recent huge expenditures under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have also enabled an increase in tourism along the ancient Silk Road routes of which China holds a greater number due to infrastructural development and establishment of cultural tourism regions.
3. Tourism Recovery Post-COVID
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic had drastic effects on tourism in general and the Silk Road in particular along with its destinations because international traffic to the region reduced by more than seventy percent in the year 2020 and 2021. Nevertheless, borders began to ease in 2022 and there was a rapid energizing of the region.
Uzbekistan: the international arrivals were 6.7 million in the year 2019, dropped to about 1.5 million tourists in the year 2020, and recovery was recorded in the year 2022 with 3.4 million tourists.
Kazakhstan: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a very sharp decrease in 2020 in tourism arrivals but there has been a recovery whenever flights have resumed and restrictions have been relaxed.
4. Revenue generated by Tourism
There has been a parallel increase in the tourism revenues of the countries along the Silk Road with the increase in the visitor's number of arrivals.
• Earnings from tourism in Uzbekistan stood at 1.5 billion dollars in 2019 compared to 617 million dollars reported in the year 2013.
• Kazakhstan's tourism sector recorded a growth in the revenue with revenues from the domestic tourism over $3.7 billion received from international tourism in the year 2019.
• The decline in revenue collection during the pandemic, have balanced revenue earned post-Covid due to regional tourism focus on domestic and international tourism.
5. Increased Focus on Cultural Heritage Tourism
Tourism promotion in cities such as Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Merv (Turkmenistan), Bukhara (Uzbekistan), and even Xi'an (China) has risen significantly because of ambitious Silk Roads Heritage Corridors of UNESCO. Silk Roads Heritage Corridors Project was launched in 2013 that provides policy guidance to the destinations and will develop a common sustainable tourism strategy for tourist management, site presentation and promotion along these heritage Corridors for sustainable growth.
According to data published in the reports of UNESCO, most of these cities were welcoming millions of tourists every year by the year 2019.
6. International Cooperation led to Tourism Development
• UNWTO Silk Road Programme, has also initiated tourism development, promoting cooperation among the countries of the Silk Road network. Initiatives like the UNWTO Silk Road Programme have steered growth in tourism through improved partnerships with Silk Road countries. In 2017, the UNWTO reported over 84 million international tourist arrivals in the Silk Road region, an increase of 7% over the previous year.
• UNWTO has continuously emphasized the role of developing cross-border tourism routes along the Silk Road, with over 50% of the world's population living in Silk Road member countries, offering significant growth potentials.
7. Sustainability and Tourism Development Quality Control
• Majority of Silk Road countries have focused on sustainability, with tourism data reflecting a shift towards responsible and green tourism.
• In Kyrgyzstan, the UNWTO and local government have supported projects promoting community-based responsible tourism, with numbers showing increased interest in eco-friendly and cultural tourism experiences.
Trends of Tourism Growth Silk Road Regions Over a Period of Ten Years: The Indicators of growth indicators have been summarised in the Following Table: -
Country/Regi on International Tourist Arrivals (2012-2019) Revenue Growth (20122019) Impact of COVID-19 (2020-2022)
Uzbekistan 2 million ^ 6.7 million $617 million ^ $1.5 billion Sharp decline in 2020, recovery started in 2022
Country/Regi on International Tourist Arrivals (2012-2019) Revenue Growth (20122019) Impact of COVID-19 (2020-2022)
Kazakhstan 4.9 million ^ 8 million $1.9 billion ^ $3.7 billion Severe drop in 2020, signs of recovery
Kyrgyzstan 2.8 million ^ 4.5 million Growth in adventure/ecotourism Affected by pandemic, slower recovery
China 57 million ^ 65 million Significant growth in Silk Road regions Gradual reopening of tourism in 2022
Turkmenistan Modest growth in cultural tourism Primarily driven by niche markets Low due to political restrictions
Opportunities and Prospects for Tourism Development along the Silk Road
1. Cultural and historical potentials- the Silk Road is endowed with ample cultural diversity as it spreads across vast regions, covering China, Central Asia, Persia, the Middle East, and Europe. Each of these regions has its special historical landmarks, religious sites and pieces of culture-- from walking along the Great Wall of China to visiting old cities in Persia or trekking in the deserts of Central Asia.
2. Tourism, as catalyst to economic development -tourism development along the Silk Road will boost the economy of local communities, especially situated in isolated and underdeveloped regions. An investment in infrastructure related to tourism would provide work opportunities, enhance lifestyles, and bring various improvements in this field. Furthermore, local handicrafts and traditional industries acts directly to the advantage of artisans and small entrepreneurs, especially of remote villages and towns.
3. Sustainability and Responsible Travel -The Silk Road offers vast, often untouched landscapes that provide an opportunity to promote sustainable tourism practices. The regions along the Silk Road are home to fragile ecosystems, deserts, mountains, and steppe environments that can attract eco-tourists interested in nature conservation. By adopting sustainable travel practices, such as limiting the environmental footprint and supporting local economies, the tourism sector can foster responsible travel along the Silk Road.
4. Fostering Cross-Cultural Dialogue- Tourism along the Silk Road presents an unparalleled opportunity to promote cultural understanding and foster dialogue among diverse communities. As tourists traverse borders and engage with different cultures, the Silk Road can become a modern-day pathway for peace and intercultural exchange, much like it was in ancient times.
5. Sustainability and Responsible Tourism -The vast, untouched landscapes of the Silk Road offer a chance for sustainable tourism development. There are fragile desert and mountain as well as steppe environments in regions and along the Silk Road that might attract more eco-tourism interested in nature conservation. Through responsible travel such as smaller environmental footprint and involvement with local economies, the tourism sector can promote responsible travel along the Silk Road.
6. Cross Cultural Exchange -Tourism along the Silk Road will offer a unique opportunity for cultural understanding and cross-cultural dialogue from different communities. As tourists cross borders and interact with other cultures, the Silk Road can become a path of peace, just like it used to be back in history.
7. Digital and Smart Mode of Tourism Development- The past decade has seen 360 degree approach to smart tourism initiatives. Silk Road destinations are now increasingly adopting digital technologies for offering tourism services, from online bookings to virtual reality (VR) experiences of historical sites. For example, China and Kazakhstan have been early adopters of digital technologies to enhance the services and visitor experience.
Challenges as Barriers for Developing Tourism along the Silk Road: - There are many factors acting as barriers which hinders in the development of tourism as per the potentialities the member countries offer.
1. Infrastructural Limitations in Destination Management and Capacity Building: There are not enough infrastructures that can support mass tourism in many parts of the Silk Road, especially in Central Asia. For example, poor transportation network, meagre accommodation facilities and underdeveloped tourism services are some of them. The wide distances between key tourist destinations also pose a huge problem for organizing trips. The road network and railways, airports, accommodations, infrastructural investments, funding, interregional and international cooperations will be vital on making destinations in the Silk Road accessible.
2. Cultural and Environmental Heritage Preservation: Commercialization of heritage sites stands as a threat to the authenticity and integrity of the cultural landmarks represented by the Silk Road. Overcrowding popular tourist destinations and poor management and provision of mass tourism facilities increasingly hurt the historical value of these places. Ecological balance is fragile in a few mountainous and coastal places, and mass tourism results in loss of environmental heritage. Coordination with UNESCO and other heritage organizations ensures cultural and environmental preservation remain a priority.
3. Approaches to Sustainable Tourism: sustainable and eco-friendly tourism practices would be essential in terms of development vs preservation. Through visitor control at heritage sites, development of off the beaten track destinations and through conservation of landscapes through eco-tourism initiatives, one could sustainably balance tourism.
4. Political and Cross-Border Cooperation and International Cooperation Mechanism: The Silk Route traverses many countries with different political, economic, and legal systems. Cross-border tourism requires concerted efforts from national governments, uniform visa policies, safety measures, and other tourist infrastructure. In some regions, political instability is another risk factor for the smooth development of tourism such as parts of Central Asia and the Middle East, has hindered tourism growth. However, efforts to promote security and safe travel routes have been ongoing.
5. Marketing and Promotion through traditional Marketing Approaches: Despite historical importance, Silk Road is less promoted as a single tourist destination. Little branding and marketing efforts have been put in place to attract international tourism. It minimises the tourism potential along the Silk Road.
Co-marketing approach, putting Silk Road forward as a unique, integrated travel experience, will be the way to success. Digital campaigns, influencer collaboration, and partnership with international tour operators can promote Silk Road destinations which are less visited and reach some niche markets of tourists, like adventure travellers, cultural enthusiasts, and history enthusiasts.
Conclusion
The Silk Road is an opportunity to create tourism that is economically viable and culturally enriching yet environmentally sustainable. Heritage as well as natural diverse attractions makes it capable of attracting all sections of tourists interested in authentic experiences. Huge challenges, however, include infrastructure, cultural preservation, cross-border co-operation, and marketing. International concerted efforts and practices to sustain the Silk Road will be able to serve as a model in the development of global tourism.
The success in Silk Road tourism will depend on striking a balance between preserving their rich heritage and incorporating modernization in infrastructure and services. With right mix of policies and coordinated efforts, it is going to continue being the pathway to the economic and cultural prosperity of the modern world.
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