HVK Archives: ET: "Aurveda brings a zing thing ..."
ET: "Aurveda brings a zing thing ..." - The Economic Times
Gita Madhusudhan
()
27 September 1996
Title : Ayurveda brings a zing thing to Indian tourism
Author : Gita Madhusudhan
Publication : The Economic Times
Date : September 27, 1996
This article is from an earlier data. It is being sent to
indicate the thinking of the author at that time.
Stressed? Overworked? Head for your next holiday to
India - that's the new sales pitch adopted by the Govern-
ment of India's tourist offices abroad.
They are not just selling the 5,000-year-old Indian
civilisation with its glittering historical reminiscences
but an even older science - Ayurveda -as part of the
pitch.
If the overcrowded five-star Ayurvedic parlours in the
country are any indication, they are doing for the coun-
try's tourism what the Thar desert or the Taj Mahal have
yet been unable to do. Thanks to them India is fast
emerging as a popular tourist destination not so much for
sight-seeing but for an exotic new product called 'health
tourism'.
For the 'health tourist' who seeks to break away from his
over stressed everyday regime, a holiday which combines
the adventure of new destinations and therapeutic bene-
fits of the age-old medicine of
Ayurveda, Destination India has come as the perfect
choice, says Ms Romani, assistant director of Tourism
India. In the last one year alone more than a dozen
Ayurvedic parlours, equipped with five-star facilities,
have sprung up in various exotic locales.
Says Mr George Dominic of the Casino group of Hotels and
Retreats whose Ayurvedic parlour in Cochin today has a
mile-long waiting list: "These five-star resorts will be
India's answer to the health spas of Greece."
Casino is adding similar parlours in its resorts at the
Periyar Spice Village, the Marari beach and is negotiat-
ing for similar resorts in Goa.
The Taj group too is planning to extend this concept to
some of its other hotels going by the popularity of this
facility in 'Taj Malabar, Cochin, and Taj Coromandel,
Madras.
Says Mr Mohan Kumar, the general manager of Taj Malabar:
"An Ayurvedic parlour could soon be a standard facility
in all our hotels just like a swimming pool or a spa."
At present, Kerala is in the lead offering 15 such facil-
ities, but more are planned at scenic places like Goa,
parts of Karnataka and Rishikesh in the Uttar Pradesh.
Major hotel chains like the Oberoi and Leela are all
gearing up to join the bandwagon of health-led tourism.
Says Mr Dominic: "Set in rustic settings with thatched
huts, green meadows, elephants etc, these parlours com-
bine ancient medicines amidst modern five-star settings
to give the customer a totally different kind of rejuve-
nating experience." Here, along with all the other
features, there is a selected panel of Ayurvedic physi-
cians who first studies the visitor's medical history and
then recommends the appropriate treatment to the mas-
seurs.
The treatments can vary from a day to three months de-
pending on each patient's needs.
Considering the dubious reputation attached to the mas-
sage parlours of Bangkok, care is being taken to preserve
the sanctity of Ayurveda.
"It is being marketed as a semi therapeutic form of medi-
cine good for rejuvenation and not just for recreation
alone," says Mr Moose who owns a parlour at the Pampad
Beach Resort.
Those seriously wanting to experiment with it have to
stick with vegetarianism and refrain from alcohol for a
specified period, he adds.
These parlours, though, are not for treatment of serious
ailments and any such cases referred to them are directed
to the Ayurvedic centres of medicine in Kottakal, Olloor
and Coimbatore which are equipped to deal with them.
Encouraged by this spurt of interest in Ayurveda, the
Union tourism ministry is printing special brochures in
English and other European languages to be distributed in
its tourist offices and among tour operators in India and
overseas. As a part of promotional activities this year
Air-India and Casino recently sponsored a trip for some
European journalists to visit these parlours and write
about them.
Though the statistics given by the tourist office reveal
that the numbers of tourists has not increased dramati-
cally, the composition has definitely changed. The lar-
gest segment -- those visiting the country for sight-
seeing -had been on the decline, while the segment of
visitors coming in on health grounds grew at the raw of
nearly 10 per cent.
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