The govt of Nagaland has branded the festival of hornbill as the festival of festivals or in other words mother of all festivals. The festival is to attract and promote the tourism in the state both domestic and international tourist, by showcasing our indigenous culture and traditions while exposing Nagaland to the rest of the world, putting Nagaland in the tourism world map. Hornbill festival is loved by the tourist because of its unique culture, traditions and lifestyle of different tribes with lash green enchanting and beautiful landscape also known as the Switzerland of the east. Hornbill festival started in the year 2000 the 19th hornbill festival which concluded recently where the inflow has increased as compared to last year, we have the potential to attract more tourists if our services are improved, exorbitant prices are controlled and our infrastructure is improved. The most important thing in promoting tourism and the first hand of contact the tourist come in contact is the taxi drivers. As an old saying says “your first impression is your last impression”. The taxi drivers plays a vital role to attract the tourist, we need to discipline our taxi drivers who charge triple the normal price during the Hornbill festival. So why are they made to hike the fare as they like, why does the KMC stay mum do we have a responsible administrators to regulate the taxi fare. We live in a state of anarchy where there is no value for money, and this is the massage that we are conveying to our tourist who pay a visit to the hornbill festival. We should fix it before it is too late which has no place in the civilized society. There is a story of a gentleman who paid a visit to Singapore for a business trip and landed in Singapore he picked a taxi had a fine conversion with the driver finally they reached the destination the taxi bill showed $12 but the driver charged him only $10 so to his surprise he asked him why the driver told him that the actual route will cost $10 but he had taken a longer route and said it is legally right to charge $12 but it is morally wrong and told him that we represent the country as country ambassadors by promoting the true values of our country. We should learn from those examples which make the most preferred destination in the southeast Asia. The second most important thing in the tourism industry is the hospitality industry considered to be the backbone of the tourism industry. The exorbitant hotel tariff rate low standard and the quality service provided does not tally with the value for money they pay for it, with the number of increasing tourist year by year required budget medium and a few star hotels need to be in place to cater to the needs of tourist arrivals in the state. Thirdly we lack basic infrastructure facilities like the poor road connectivity, the only commercial city Dimapur and the state capital is full of pot holes and dusty no place to think about the rest. The Govt of Nagaland has spend Rs 5 crore for the hornbill festival this year, so what purpose does it serve spending huge amount of money when we do not have the required infrastructure in place, the smart city Kohima is voted to be one of the worst liveable city in India. We should calculate how much revenue is earned in the process and not focus only on merry making by turning it into another Sodom and Gomorrah. The air connectivity that we have connects Delhi via Kolkata with no direct flight, it cost time and money since time is money the more money it costs the lesser the tourist in flow, and vice versa. Fourthly the exorbitant prices at the food stalls double the amount of the normal price, we try to copy the international standard bur our quality and services does not match with the price being offered.
So what kind of massage are we conveying to our tourists. As per the customer relationship management it takes 12 positive incidents to make up one negative incident, also a delighted tourist will convey to 10 others and 10*10=100 means that one delighted tourist creates 100 tourist and vice versa. many comments in the print media by both the domestic and international tourist expressing their bitter experiences regarding the cab service, hotel tariff deplorable road condition, unfunctioning ATM, high food prices and many more so as per the calculation how many dissatisfied tourist have we created those tourist will never turn back at the same time they will share their bitter experiences to the other parts of the world. Tourist come and tourist go but hornbill remains, they are our guest we have the responsibility to make sure that our tourist are safe and secure, A good initative to the tourism police in its efforts for the safety of the tourist . As a responsible entrepreneur we should not look for short term gain but focus on long term benefits and easy money or short term gain has long term effects in our tourism industry. It is not only the tourism department but every individual owes the responsibility to make our state a perfect tourist destination