Manipulation, theft and sexual harassment are the top concerns for both domestic and foreigner visitors in Ind... Read More

PUNE: Pune-based entrepreneur Vijay Thakkar was touring the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur circuit with his family when his visit to the Taj Mahal turned into disaster. A thief picked Thakkar’s pocket inside the monument, taking his wallet containing Rs 20,000 and a debit card. From then till a friend bailed Thakkar out by sending some money, the family had bare minimum cash that did not suffice to buy even basic food items.

Thakkar’s experience as a tourist is one of several cases that have been documented by the ministry of tourism in a recent study. Manipulation and cheating, theft and sexual harassment — ranked 1, 2 and 3 — were the most rampant issues that both Indian and foreign tourists faced when visiting cities across the country, the study found.

The study, which was conducted in 14 states and included places like Pune, Aurangabad, Delhi, Calangute (Goa), Panjim, Kochi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Amritsar, found that entry and exit points like airports, railway stations and bus terminals were the areas where tourists faced the most exploitation, particularly from touts.

Reminiscing his ordeal, Thakkar told TOI that the Rs 20,000 he lost was the money that was to get him to his next stop in Jaipur. “I had a night halt in Jaipur, but getting there without the money and debit card became a huge problem. I called up a friend who agreed to have some money sent to me. But till the money came, the cash we still had was very little. Buying food became a problem for our family,” he said.

Another city-based businessman, Vishal Parmar, was a duped by a travel agent in Mumbai on his tour of Uttarakhand. The agent took Rs 1.8 lakh from Parmar for an all-inclusive trip, but did not book hotel rooms in two transit destinations. “Our group of 12 reached Auli and found that we had no rooms booked in the hotel, though we had received the booking details in writing from the agent. We had to wait for three hours in the rain to get other rooms booked, paying an extra Rs 20,000 for those. Three of us fell sick due to the rain and cold, turning our trip into a nightmare,” said Parmar.

The study was undertaken to assess the tourist police systems in 14 states and Union territories in India, choosing two places in each state that are most frequented by tourists. The study surveyed 4,480 respondents, including tourists, government officials, tourist police officials and tour companies. As many as 2,754 tourists were interviewed for the study.

Close to 39% tourists said they had experienced cheating in some form or the other, 21% reported theft of some kind, while 17% faced threats. Shockingly, as many as 650 tourists tagged fatal crimes, sexual harassment and rape as issues that faced during their visits.

Sarat Kumar Lenka, nodal officer, Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM), Bhubaneswar, which comes under the ministry of tourism, said, “A lot of times, many cases including sexual harassment are not reported by the tourists because of the taboo associated with such experiences. Theft and manipulation tend to go unreported too in several cases. Tourists merely register a complaint of theft with the hotel where they stayed, instead of reporting the matter to the police station or the tourist police officials.”

Moreover, with their itinerary planned, tourists feel reporting such incidents would result in wasting their time, said Lenka, who was the chief investigator of the study.

The study also assessed the most rampant issues that their clients report to hoteliers and tour operators they rope in. “When asked to rank the nature of security issues in the order of frequency of occurrence, 25% of the tour operators ranked theft and 16% ranked fraud and cheating as the most frequent. Another 16% ranked sexual harassment as the most common,” Lenka said.

After entry-exit points, crimes against tourists are most rampant in places such as hotels and restaurants. Religious destinations, market areas, monuments and fairs and festivals, in that order, are other places where tourists have faced exploitation and crime, the study said.

