Wildlife Tourism Gearing up in India

WILDLIFE TOURISM is gearing up in India and is obtaining global recognition. From Asian Elephants to Asiatic Lion, Bengal Tiger, Sloth Bear, Indian Rhinoceros and Leopard to hundreds of bird species, tourists from all across the world are attracted to visit the country.  Also, the increasing publicity by tourism boards coupled with improvements in facilities for tourists has attracted more travellers within a short span of time.

With 104 national parks and 500 plus wildlife sanctuary, one of the recent ongoing buzz around the town is the upward graph of India wildlife tours. Earlier wildlife tourism brought new challenges for the governmental bodies, but in the present time this rise is indeed supporting the conservation initiatives taken for the welfare of flora and fauna.

According to a research by conservation India, Wildlife tourism is growing at 15 percent annually in parks in which 70 percent of the visitors are Indian.  The research further states that many tourists (71 percent) are willing to re-visit these parks but tourists to Ranthambore and Kanha say that tiger sightings are a must. Tourists have a critical role to play in India as wildlife tourism continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Visitors’ concern and interest in Indian wildlife and parks along with financial prowess can become a boon or death knell for conservation.

Way back in 1973 when Bandhavgarh, Ranthambore and Sariska were launched as national parks, need for the departments of forest, transport, fisheries and tourism to coordinate their resources arises.  Despite chaotic management, in Dec 2004, tourism saw growth due to the availability of fantastic locales which were perfect to attract tourists from worldwide. In 2002, Kerala Tourism Development Corporation entered into a partnership with Indian Tourism Development Corporation development of tourism in Kerala. This included that sites for water sports, wildlife tourism, backwater holidays and mountain activities be identified. The industry by now had started sustaining a substantial amount of people.

The month of October and November is considered to be the season for bird watching in India. It is during this season that one gets to see the migrating birds such as the Sarus crane and more in the various bird sanctuaries across the nation.

“Ranthambore attracts the most of tourism. Tadoba is Maharashtra is the best tiger reserve and not many even know about and worse overseas visitors have no clue about it. Kabini is another amazing and probably best as far as animal bird diversity is concerned but not known to many,” says Manjunath Gowda, CEO, WildTrails.

Gowda, to promote the wildlife tourism launched an app, WildTrails that helps the travellers to find animals and birds while on a safari across India. WildTrails get 30,000 visitors per month and have 40,000+ apps downloads which get around 10,000 active app users per month.