Hotelier P V Giri is quoted in the media as saying that he has been raising issues pertaining to tourism promotion over a period of time. We could benefit from his insight, by way of specifics, on what he thinks could be done by 1) tourism ministry; 2) local authorities; 3) the tourist industry; and 4) the local populatiuon to make visitors feel very welcome in Mysore.
Mysore is a haven for tourism. But government has done precius little though the intention is not lacking. One way to attract is to create an orgnisation of householders who can act as hosts for tourists either free as a gesture for a few days in their houses or charge them specially for foreign tourists so that they can understand culture of Mysore. It will slowly catch up and can become a movement attracting people from all over the world in due course. Howevever, care has to be taken to see that it does not deteriarate as a commercial venture with all its ill effects. For this certain guidelines have to be drawn and strictly followed.
Maybe, local tourism info centre or the roatary (which has published the 'Mysore Guide') ought to take the initiative to identify families that are tourist-friendly and volunteer to host visitors. They could specify the type of people they would like to have as guests - age group, the number at any given time. The rotary and the information centre could bring out a directory of hosts.
Local media - Star of Mysore, Mysore Mail - can put out informative ads, as public interest messages, to invite voluteer hosts. And we at mymysore.com can carry the list of such hosts as and when they get enlisted. This way, intending vistors could e-mail or phone potential hosts in advance to get a 'feel' of one another.
India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has offered Rs.5 crore grant for promoting Mysore as tourists destination. Plans are to open night bazaars, for late-night shopping by tourists, at Dasara Exhibition grounds and Bannimantap;
To set up a larger Musical fountains at Brindavan Gardens; a musical fountain at Nishad Bagh in Nazarbad; and floating fountains on Kukkarahalli Lake;
To set up a floating restaurant on Dalvoy Lake on Nanjangud Road.
City corporation commissioner A B Ibrahim would suggest a 'circuit tourism' package with Mysore as the focal point of the tour.
Non-resident Mysoreans, we are sure, have their thoughts on these proposals, in the light of their experiences elsewhere in the world.. Those who have stake in tourism development in Mysore can only benefit from NRM views and ideas. .
'Atithi', the home stay concept promoted by the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC), hasn't evoked much response from Mysore residents. A campagin to enlist names of prospective hosts elicited only 10 applicants, according to the corporation.
Lack of adequate public awareness about the 'Atithi' programme could be a reason. Here the efforts of the tourism corporation should be supplemented by agencies such as leading travel agencies and Rotary Mysore that has brought out a Mysore Guide.
Reputed travel agents like BIT could maintain data on 'Attithi' households for the benefit of their customers who wish to spend their Mysore stay with local families.
Newspapers can carry 'classifieds' from intending guests and prospective hosts, at subsidised tariff, if not free, as 'public interest' messages.
Message boards of tourism related websites should be made available to them to interact online and firm up home stay arrangements prior to the visitors' arrival..
Vartha Communications has brought out a traveller's guide to home-stay facilities in Madikeri and a website on Pravasi Athitya Mane. The guide and the website give relevant details on houses that host tourists, along with contact addresses, photographs and details of food, lifestyle of hosts, transport and communication facilities available in the neighbourhood and its distance from various places of tourist interest.
Let's learn from Madikeri. A Mysore home-stay website would be a good idea. Rotary Mysore could revise their Mysore Guide to include home-stay info.
A run-of-the-mill tourst takes in the palace, the zoo and the hill and calls it a day, quite unaware that he has missed out a lot more than he has seen of Mysore. Manjunath Bhat can think of at least 10 notable places that get routinely ignored by visitors. He cites, for instance, the Oriental Research Institute, a treasure trove of ancient Indian palm leaf records. The building where it is housed is worth a visit for its architectural spleandour.
Mr Bhat, CEO of Benaka Tourism Marketing and Research, has a tourist 'miss list' that includes the University Folklore Museum, Bahubali statue at Gamatagiri, near Yelwal, the Golden Buddha at Bylakuppe.
There are temples of architectural interest within the palace complex - Kodi Bhairava, Kodi Someshwara (of Chola period), Trineshwara (with idol that was worshipped by sage Trinabindu) , the Varahaswamy temple (1809 vintage), Prasanna Krishnaswamy (1825), dedicated to Ambegalu Krishna. And then, the more recent ones on the palace campus - Gayatri (1951) and Bhuvaneshwari (1953) - were designed by Stapathi Siddalingaswamy. (Source: R Krishna Kumar's write-up, 'The Hindu' - May 18, 2005)
Given below is a typical two-day programme drawn up by tour operators for uninformed tourists to Mysore:
After breakfast in Bangalore, drive to Mysore. On arrival visit the Palace -built in 1912 in the Indo Saracenic style; proceed to "Jayachanarajendra Art Gallery" at the Jaganmohan palace: that has a collection of paintings dating back to 1875.
Check in, and after a brief rest at the hotel, visit to the bull temple (a 4.8mts monolith) midway on the hill on way to Chamundi temple. The 2000-year-old temple ( at a height of 1062mts). is dedicated to Goddess Chamundi. A seven storey, 40mts high tower, dominates the temple.
Day 2: Excursion to Somnathpur and Srirangapattinum. Somnathpur - an inscribed stone slab, in old Kannada, at the entrance says the founding monarch was Narasimha III (1254-91 A.D.) whose full regal title runs into a sizeable paragraph: Sri Vishnuvaradhana, Pratapa Chakravarti, Hoysala Bhujabala, Sri Vira Narasimha, Maharajadhiraja, Raja Paramesvara, Sanivarasiddhi, Giridurgamalla etc.
Srirangapattinam - an island fortress town on the bank of Cauvery. Visit the fort and the summer palace of Tippu sultan. Take in Ranganathitu Bird Sanctuary on way back to Mysore
A growing class of pizza-fed IT professionals in Bangalore has started looking at Mysore as a place to which they can drive to while away their weekend, do Bandipur and bird-watch at Srirangapatna. Corporate houses seem to prefer this town as venue to host their in-house seminar and conferences.
Mysore has nearly 120 budget to star grades hotels and the city could do with a couple of state-of-the-art conference halls.
-The government plans on deploying 'tourism police' at strategic places in view of increasing complaints of 'harassment' ov visitors and tourists. Another thing tourists complain about is that some self-styled tourist guides tend to 'misguide' gullible tourists by giving exaggerated accounts of places and things.
A 'tourism park', on the lines of the one at Surajkund in Haryana, will come up on a 50-acre space at the foot of Chamundi Hills. It will have cottages, dormitaries and entertaiinment facilities, according tourism minister D T Jayakumar (June 12, 2005)
Is Mysore tourist friendly? In the 50s and 60s, tourists used to come to Mysore in groups by Dakota planes, land at Mandakalli airport and stay in Mysore for 2-3 days visiting a number of tourist spots. Today, a tourist makes a dashing one-day visit to Mysore, goes round Srirangapatna and KRS and returns to Bangalore the same night. If that is how Mysore's importance as a tourist centre has diminised over the last four decades, do we have a modern toilet at any of the tourists spots? One cannot step into some of these toilets, let alone using them. Do we have good colour picture postcards of the tourist places, which can help showcase Mysore as a dream place for a tourist? There is only tall talk of making Mysore a prominent tourist destination, with no basic infrastructural facilities needed for a visitor.
Addressing Ms Gowri Satya's concern about having good picture cards on Mysore, I sure agree with her. considering this void I took it on myself to develop something good that does justice to a place like Mysore. we developed a multimedia CD ROM on mysore and called it My Mysore . it had loads of information about mysore, places surrounding Mysore, 100s of good quality pictures and even a Mysore Dassars video. lot of efforts went in and it was priced very reasonably. but i could not make up my investment, i even approached the dept of tourism for sponsorship but it was not forthcoming. what the state should have done i did but got no support to sustain. the commissioners and secretaries are happy travelling than focussing on such matters of providing quality comprehensive information to the tourists. So the people have to be content with the same old poor quality pic cards that have been available since decades. bhaskar.sh@gmail.com
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SQN LDR S H BHASKAR
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"My Mysore" an exhaustive multimedia tour guide is available, any sponsors or takers?
With referaence to my own post above " MY MYSORE" CDROM tour guide
i. can be used by tourists to know better before they visiting, ii. can be carried home as a souvenir, it is a collector's piece. iii. given away as gifts to friends, relatives, corporate guests visiting. iv. even major hotels and shops can give it as complimentary or at a low cost.
possibilities are many. the Mysore business people can advertise and promote this. Well how one feels for ones place is what matters. I can only wish "long live the glory of Sri Chamundeswari and her Mysore". bhaskar.sh@gmail.com
in case u are planning a trip to mysore plz be carefull coz local people out there r very rude..... bad natured esp'y if ur from tamil nadu avoid speaking in tamil as far as possible....keeping the cauvery issue i mind the really treat u badly....plz use the karnataka regn'd vehicles for local sight seeing...and of all beware of auto rikshaw walas...... worst fellows................as fas as possible avoid trip to MYSORE as there r many other nice paces in karnataka to visit...
