The people of Vizag are upbeat about business and employment prospects with the Vizag-Bhimili corridor project getting underway and Union tourism minister Chiranjeevi promising a plethora of other projects to make Vizag a tourism hotspot.

However, some people believe that the true tourism potential of Vizag cannot be harnessed by merely putting money in infrastructure projects. Besides, a project must be in sync with the socio-cultural mix of the region and in this respect planners and policymakers lack objectivity, the people of the region said as per a TOI report. 

Investments worth Rs 473 crore have been proposed for tourism projects in and around Vizag. However, the projects (a tourism park at Madhurwada, a science and entertainment city at Kapuluppada, Aarogyadham at Madhurawada, an international convention centre at Mudasarlova under the private-public partnership mode) do not seem to have caught the local flavour, according to sources.

"Tourism should be culture-centric, region centric and people centric. However, many of the projects being proposed do not take into account the role that could be played by local heritage sites and the local culture, especially the festivals," said B Radhakrishna, a management consultant and specialist in local communities and economics who pointed out that such projects usually are at the expense of the local people.

"That local culture should be at the centre of tourism development seems to be lost on these people. More importantly, locals do feel empowered as they play a major role in making it count for the tourists, instead of merely being dependent on projects for employment," said Radhakrishna.

Rani Sarma of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) also noted that there are many heritage sites and festivals that Vizag could showcase as tourist attractions but this is not being done. "If policymakers do not have a people and culture-centric approach, the local flavour can never be experienced and there are many tourists who are on the lookout for it," said Sarma.

The Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) has brought the culture equation into the picture said locals, especially those of Araku, where the involvement of local people can be felt in more ways than one.

"It is not as if we have not experimented with this idea before. Tourism in Araku is as much about the people and their culture and crafts as it is about the place. We have also tried to empower them financially by conducting the Araku Utsav, which was conducted recently," observed APTDC regional manager U M Rao.

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