Where Sachin Will Surely Flop
As tourism ambassador of Maharashtra, he will have a flawed product to sell.
When Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi made Amitabh Bachchan the tourism ambassador for his state, the Congress went hammer and tongs at the superstar. Now that the dust has settled, the Congress-led Maharashtra government has decided that it too wants a tourism ambassador. And they’ve picked Sachin Tendulkar for the job.
Should Tendulkar take up the job, he will probably find the task harder than facing a Shane Warne googly. Here’s a simple test for Tendulkar: think of 10 tourist spots in the state with decent accommodation. Chances are that after three, he will have to push his cricketing brain really hard. Maharashtra is a state which has never ever paid any attention to developing tourism beyond making big announcements.
The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation has had a monopoly over tourism sites for a long time, and this is partly the problem. And the hallmarks of MTDC hospitality are bad service, filth and lack of basic amenities.
That Maharashtra’s tourism is doomed was evident when a couple of years ago, it decided to also have a luxury tourist train along the lines of the Palace on Wheels. The Deccan Odyssey failed spectacularly. It was overpriced for domestic tourists and foreign passengers realised it was nothing to write home about. Now, the train usually stands parked in a Mumbai railway yard.