[Reader-list] Golf in South Asia (II)

[Mario Rodrigues]

Mario Rodrigues: Golf in South Asia (II)  

Over the last decade, India and China have emerged as
the new theatres of golf expansionism in Asia. The
number of players and courses increased have
dramatically in these countries during this period. 
This ‘golfisation’ of India and China follows the
model established in the South-east Asian nations of
Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Burma whose natural
landscapes have been transmogrified into chemically
fuelled carpets of golfing ‘greens’. 

A number of factors, most to do with the
liberalisation/globalisation of the national economy, 
have ignited the golf boom in India and China.  
Each country possesses vast tracts of land and also
boasts a substantial segment of population, amounting
to a few hundred millions, that have been enriched by
the neo-liberal economic policies of its governments 
and the globalisation of its national economy. 

Golf is a direct beneficiary of the
liberalisation/globalisation of the Indian economy,
which unleashed new productive forces and reaped rich
dividends in the form of prosperity and progress –
although at whose and what cost is another matter! One
of the prerequisites of globalisation is the
unfreezing of the investment climate to enable global
and domestic investors, forever in search of
investment opportunities, to park their considerable
funds in a national economy. 

This, therefore, involved the repackaging of the
country/state as an attractive investment destination
(take, for example, the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ campaign of
chief minister Narendra  Modi) in various sectors like
manufacturing, construction, information technology
and the entertainment-cum-leisure industry (which
requires the construction, among other things, of
cinema multiplexes, theme parks, holiday resorts and
golf courses). 

According to the 11th Quarterly Survey of Projects
Investments (30 June 2003), the last named sector had
258 projects worth Rs.32,795 crores at various stages
of planning and implementation. Maharashtra topped
this list with project investments worth Rs.9,998
crores. Among such mega-projects lined up nationally
are the Amby Valley lifestyle resort off Lonavla
(Maharashtra), a tourism project in the Sunderbans,
West Bengal (both promoted by the Sahara group), a
film city in Jaipur, a leisure-cum-theme park at
Greater Noida (off Delhi), and so on. Some of these
mega-projects also involve the building of golf
courses. 

On the one hand these entertainment multiplexes,
shopping malls, nine-pin bowling alleys and golf
courses serve the purpose of providing avenues for the
beneficiaries of globalisation (possibly a couple of
hundred million) to blow up their fat pay packets in
pursuit of a glorified lifestyle promoted by satellite
television and the print media. On the other hand,
they are also expected to help promote tourism. 

The leisure-cum-tourism industry has become a major
engine of global economic transformation, with tourism
having emerged as a major foreign-exchange earner,
which also has the capacity to generate employment.
“With one out of every 12 persons in the world
employed in travel and tourism, this industry has the
potential to create up to 25 million jobs in the next
decade,” Ashwini Kakkar, CEO and MD, Thomas Cook
(India) Ltd., claimed. 

The Government of India’s Department of Tourism and
the state governments have accordingly identified
various “niche grooves” for investment in or promotion
of tourism which includes eco-tourism, heritage
tourism, spiritual tourism, adventure tourism,
wellness (medical) tourism, Bollywood tourism and, of
course, golf tourism. ‘Incredible India’, the Centre’s
multi-faceted tourism promotion initiative, has even
brought out a booklet to hard-sell the nation’s golf
attractions. This mode of promotion is true of almost
every country on the tourism map, be it Brazil, South
Africa, China, Dubai and even Australia and New
Zealand, to mention only a few, which have all jumped
enthusiastically on the ‘golf tourism’ bandwagon. 

The golf tourism-promotion model is also being pursued
by almost every state, from Maharashtra to Meghalaya,
Kerala to Jammu & Kashmir and Gujarat to Goa. This is
irrespective of the ideological colouring of its
rulers, whether red, saffron or green -- from Jammu &
Kashmir’s Mufti Mohammed Sayyed (and his golf playing
predecessor Farooq Abdullah) to Haryana’s Om Prakash
Chautala (since voted out). 

West Bengal’s Marxist chief minister, Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee, too is wooing more investments and
international tourists to his state with a
three-pronged approach: ecology, heritage and golf.
Highlighting golf’s role in driving the hospitality
industry, Bhattacharjee said at the annual convention
of the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations
of India two years ago: “Calcutta (Kolkata) is one of
the cheapest golfing destinations in the world and in
RCGC, Tollygunge Club and Fort William, we have three
world-class golf courses.” The chief minister even
lamented the absence of a direct air link between
Kolkata and Tokyo, which prevented Japanese tourists
flying in more frequently to play golf in the ‘city of
joy’. 

Of course, the key to the promotion of golf tourism
lies in attracting the globally itinerant Japanese
golfer. Golf is a big craze in Japan, but it is
extremely expensive and difficult for the Japanese to
play in their own country. They find it cheaper to fly
to a neighbouring country for a week or a weekend of
golf. To grab a chunk of this Japanese pie, Indian
states are now scurrying to promote Buddhist religious
sites coupled with golf courses. Even Goa, whose
(once) golden beaches and laidback lifestyle helped
make it an international tourist hotspot, is now
trying to tread this Buddhist-cum-golf path in order
to lure the Japanese tourist. 

Golf has also prospered because it caters to the
recreational needs of executives of multinational
corporations, who are either based here or business
travellers visiting India to prospect emerging
opportunities. This particular factor has propelled 
the upgradation of existing courses to world standards
to satisfy this foreign clientele as well as the
building of new ones. 

Finally, golf has also become a beneficiary of the
move to build SEZs (special economic zones), ‘smart
cities’ (like the $ 2.9 billion project of the
Vancouver-based Royal Indian Raj International
Corporation in Bangalore) or ‘NRI city’ (on the
outskirts of Delhi). These super-elitist enclaves will
boast of a business district, educational, medical and
recreational facilities. Golf courses are an essential
component of such recreational facilities. Why, even
Steve Waugh, former Australian cricket captain, was
most recently in Kolkata representing his country’s
construction industry, with a proposal to build one
such city – boasting of a golf course as well. 
Ends


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