By S.M. Inam
Pakistan’s inclusion by the Daily Telegraph among a select group of unusual destinations with snow-covered mountains, peaceful valleys, ancient civilizations and opportunities for adventure is welcome recognition of something the country has possessed for generations but has struggled to develop: an extraordinary natural and cultural inheritance. The travel feature, written by travel writers Benedict Allen and Sarah Marshall, invites international travelers to look beyond familiar tourist destinations and discover places that remain relatively unexplored. Pakistan’s Hunza valley, high glaciers, flower-filled meadows and the Karakoram Highway feature prominently. The highway is rightly presented as a remarkable feat of engineering. The hospitality of people living in the country’s mountainous regions is also praised.
Pakistan shares the list with countries including Turkmenistan, Gabon, Angola, Timor-Leste, Nicaragua, Guyana, Armenia, the Republic of the Congo and Indonesia. Such recognition should certainly be welcomed. But it should also prompt a more serious question: what has Pakistan done with the tourism potential it already possesses? The answer, for too long, has been too little. Pakistan has a tourism asset that many countries spend enormous sums trying to create. Its mountains require no artificial spectacle. Its valleys need no elaborate decoration. Its glaciers, rivers, forests, archaeological remains and historic towns already provide the raw material for a world-class tourism industry. What has been missing is a consistent policy that can turn this extraordinary inheritance into sustainable economic opportunity.
Tourism could become an important source of employment, foreign exchange and investment. It could create opportunities for hotels, restaurants, transport companies, guides, photographers, artisans and countless small businesses. In remote communities, where formal employment remains limited, tourism can provide livelihoods without forcing young people to leave their homes in search of work. There is a wider economic benefit, too. A serious tourism strategy would require better roads, communications, sanitation, emergency services and digital connectivity. These investments would not serve tourists alone. They would improve the quality of life of the communities that live in these areas throughout the year. But Pakistan must be careful about the kind of tourism it seeks to create.
The objective cannot simply be to bring as many visitors as possible and measure success through hotel occupancy or foreign exchange earnings. The landscapes attracting those visitors are fragile. Their destruction would eventually undermine the industry itself. Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Its glaciers are under pressure, weather patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable and floods have repeatedly devastated mountain communities. The environmental risks are therefore not theoretical. They are already visible. This creates a difficult contradiction. At the moment Pakistan is receiving international encouragement to open its mountains and valleys to more visitors, some of those same landscapes are becoming more vulnerable to environmental change and human pressure.
The question is not whether Pakistan should promote tourism. It should. The question is whether it can do so without destroying the very qualities that make the country attractive. Unplanned construction is one of the clearest dangers. Hotels, restaurants, roads and commercial buildings erected without proper environmental assessments can permanently alter fragile mountain ecosystems. Waste management is another growing problem. A valley celebrated for its pristine beauty can quickly lose that character when plastic, sewage and unmanaged rubbish become part of the landscape. Tourism development must therefore be accompanied by strict environmental standards. Construction in sensitive areas should be regulated. Waste and sewage systems should be established before tourist numbers increase.
Water resources must be protected. Traffic should be managed in locations where roads and ecosystems cannot absorb unlimited pressure. Local communities must also be placed at the center of the strategy. Tourism should not become an industry in which outside investors profit while residents carry the environmental and social costs. People living in tourist destinations should have a meaningful role in decisions about development and should receive a fair share of the resulting income. The protection of glaciers deserves particular attention. They are not simply beautiful features of the landscape or destinations for adventurous travelers. They are vital sources of water for millions of people.
Their retreat, combined with the danger of glacial lake outburst floods, makes their protection a matter of national resilience as well as environmental responsibility. Forests and rivers require the same consideration. A tourism project that destroys a forest to build a resort or pollutes a river for commercial convenience cannot reasonably be described as sustainable development. It is simply the consumption of an asset that took generations to form and may be impossible to restore. Pakistan should also broaden its understanding of what it has to offer. Hunza and the Karakoram are among the country’s best-known attractions, but they are only part of the picture.
Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offer extraordinary mountain landscapes and cultural traditions. Punjab and Sindh possess archaeological and historic treasures that deserve greater international attention. Balochistan has a coastline, deserts and landscapes that remain largely unexplored by international tourism. The country therefore needs a more sophisticated approach to marketing. It should not simply advertise individual destinations. It should tell a broader story about Pakistan as a country of mountains, history, cultures and diverse landscapes.
(The writer is a former government officer and a senior analyst on national and international affairs, can be reached at inam@metro-morning.com)
