I just came back from Istanbul, Turkey after a short vacation and i already feel ready and refreshed for some serious work. No doubt Turkey is beautiful but I realized Pakistan is no less. Except for the organization part, where Turkey and Pakistan can not be compared, Karachi and Istanbul are very much alike. The kind of infrastructure that Istanbul has is similar to that of Karachi, even the landscaping is kind of similar like having a sea shore like Karachi's. The only difference between Karachi and Istanbul is that Turkish people have developed their tourism industry.
Look at Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, their economy is completely based on tourism when they only have beaches to boast about. They are a poor nation or should i say were a poor nation while Pakistan on the other hand has everything from beautiful sandy beaches to highest mountain peaks and yet we don't market them well.
Being a marketing person, i would say it is all about packaging and promoting it well. Only if we have proper sites and information related to all the things we have to offer then foreigners would know how beautiful and full of natural resources our country is, just like we found everything online from hotels to tour package to places we should visit for Turkey.
However for that, we must also update and improve our hotels and facilities available there because if tourists come and find things differently, they'll have a bad image about us.
Anyway, right now the kind of instability that is prevailing in Pakistan is making its inhabitants move away then foreigners who are so panicky, why would they ever come here. The stock market went down by almost 500points the other day as well and Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs) is also being pulled out.
This was not the way how i wanted my blog to go. I wanted it to be a little ray of hope for everyone and just to create awareness that we really need to develop our tourism industry but sadly the situations of today simply make it impossible to be positive about anything!
