KP tourism department fumbles funds

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Tourism and culture authority was able to spend funds on just three  annual development projects during the first six months of the current financial year. 

As a result, the projects included in the provincial Annual Development Program (ADP) for the promotion of tourism are delayed. The provincial government has allocated Rs8.379 billion in the ADP for the tourism sector in the province. Till date, the authority has been able to utilize Rs 975 million from the released fund. 

According to the documents of the provincial Finance department, the authority has managed to spend Rs 50 million on a project under the Galiyat Development Authority and only Rs 523 million have been utilized under the integrated tourism Development project out of Rs3 billions. Similarly, Dir Development Authority has managed to utilize the entire allocated fund of Rs 395 million on the integrated tourism Development project. 

State of tourism development 

According to the 2021 report of the World Travel & Tourism Council, travel and tourism contributed $8.8 billion, approximately 2.9% of total GDP of Pakistan, in 2017. By 2019, the total GDP contribution of tourism to Pakistan was $15 billion which accounts for 5.7% of the total GDP. However, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this growth fell significantly in 2020 by nearly 25%, falling to $11.6 billion, or 4.4% of GDP. Similarly, jobs in the tourism industry fell 11.1% from 3.45 million in 2019 to 3.63 million in 2020. Most significant to these figures, however, is that the major contributor in this is Pakistan’s domestic tourists. In fact, domestic spending on tourism accounts for 91% of total spending, and foreign tourists bring in a mere 9% of the revenue of the tourism and travel industry in Pakistan. Of this, 93% is leisure spending on travel and tourism and only 7% is for business.

This then means that the majority of the demand for tourism in the country comes from within. Nearly five million domestic tourists travel each year across Pakistan. But for all of the natural potential that Pakistan has, it lags behind in some very specific areas. According to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index developed by the World Economic Forum, Pakistan lags in all key sub-indicators with the exception of price competitiveness, which is only the result of the depreciation in the rupee. 

Out of a list of 141 countries, Pakistan is 130th at having an Enabling Environment, 138th on Safety and Security index, 102nd on the Health and Hygiene index, 138th on the Human Resource and Labour Market index, 123rd on Travel and Tourism Policy and Enabling Conditions, 120th on Prioritisation of Travel and Tourism by the Government, 107th on Tourism Infrastructure, and 141st out of 141 countries on the Environmental Sustainability index.

Failed projects 

Among the projects where the authority failed to spent funds are capacity building project for employees of attached departments, tourism festivals, small scale Tourism Promotion, Tourism Police, renovation of Hund Park, setting up Tour Operator Facilitation Centers,  development of Tourist Spots, establishment of Tourism Planning Cell, construction of Roads to Tourist Spots, setting of camping pods, construction of trek to tourist sites and construction of road to Sheikh Badin tourist site in Dera Ismail Khan. 

According to sources before the Tourism and culture authority, KP Tourism Corporation was working to promote tourism in the province, which had arranged numerous annual events at tourist places. However, during the past two years, the authority could not arrange any major event to attack domestic and foreign tourists. According to sources, despite spending millions of rupees on participation in the Dubai Expo, the authority could not attract any foreign investment in the tourism sector.