How sad that a country with such a rich and interesting heritage and varied culture wants to have a Vegas style resort as the main incentive to visit! See the world but feel as if you are still at home...

But perhaps I would not be the average (and money-spending) tourist they wish to attract?

How about promoting ethical tourism to give poorer people direct access to tourist dollars, rather than keeping it in the hands of corporations?

(There has been coverage in the UK recently questioning why the UK still gives more aid to India than anywhere else, even though it has a booming economy growing faster than our own. Others reply that there are more desperately poor people in India than anywhere else of course: but I wonder why, apparently, is so little done by those who do have plenty of money? I'd be interested to hear your own perspective on this - I don't imagine we get the full picture here.)

Hi,

Thanks for writing. firstly let me tell you you are one of the rare species of tourists who are looking for ethical tourism. Most are looking at pleasure and fun and not heritage. that is why you have huge number of tourists from britain and europe going to thailand.

secondly, yes india is growing but its fuelled by the service sector. that contributes to about 52% of our GDP. where as still 80% of our population are farmers. And these 80% are not affected by the success story that india is experiencing.

Also, the trickle down effect takes time and after growing at 2.5 % annually for nearly thirty years the economy is taking time to grow.

The biggest source of employment as you pointed out will be tourism as we in India are blessed with a combination of Paris, Africa and Switzerland. We have everything under one roof. We have a beautiful country.

And that is what the government is trying to do but the problem is that people want phuket not India:-)