A tale of 2 statistics

Central, state tourism departments can’t seem to agree on number of tourists visiting Karnataka

By Rutvick Mehta

BANGALORE (Dec. 8)—There are discrepancies in the statistics provided by the central and state tourism departments regarding the number of tourist arrivals in Karnataka due to flawed calculation methods and lack of expertise.

According to the data provided by the Karnataka Tourism Department, the tourist arrivals in Karnataka between 2008 and 2010 were:  

However, according to the statistics provided by the central government’s Tourism Ministry, the tourist arrivals in Karnataka between 2008 and 2010 were:

The figures vary for all the three years but the difference is most striking for 2008.

The problem arose because there was no one in charge of collecting and maintaining the statistics in the state tourism department, which launched a separate department for statistics just three months ago.

“I saw the variations myself, and I was shocked,” said Narasimha M.R, the state tourism department’s assistant director, which is in charge of statistics. “The director had told to us that there was nobody to look after the statistics before I joined three months ago, and that was a big problem.”

Different methods for different departments

The central government’s tourism department in Bangalore takes the figures provided by the Immigration Bureau, which makes a note of the foreign and domestic tourist arrivals at the airport.

“We collect data from the airport and the seaport,” said Kunhan P.K, the Tourism Ministry’s tourist information officer. “Till now, there is no proper system or checkpoints to track tourist arrivals through road or rail. Hence, we have our own system of collecting data from the immigration office.”

Kunhan said the statistics of the state tourism department would always be higher than their statistics as the state department also collects information from hotels, bus stops and other such tourist spots.

Karnataka has many popular tourist attractions like Mysore and Hampi.

Interestingly, the state department forwards its data to the central department, but the central department chooses to publish the figures provided by the immigration office.

Both departments say there are flaws in the other department’s system of collecting data and that their figures are more accurate.

“The figures provided by the immigration people to the central department are inaccurate,” said Narasimha. “What about tourists who do not come by air? Now, we have a streamlined method of collecting the data from different tourist spots in the state.”

“How can you get accurate information about tourists by going to hotels and bus stops?” Kunhan said. “For example, some people living in hotels might not be tourists. Till we get a proper system of getting data from such points, our figures will always be more accurate.”

Statistics maintained for different purposes

“The state department maintains the statistics for their own internal state purposes,” said Rajender Prasad, director of the Tourism Ministry. “We maintain and record the statistics for international purposes.”
However, experts in the field of statistics believe that such huge differences have to be due to flaws in the system of collecting and recording data.

“There might be a number of reasons for the differences such as lack of experts, flaws in methods of data collection and errors in reporting,” said N.V. Praveen, masters in operational research and head of the statistics department in Vijaya Junior PU College. “But having a difference of about 20 million is just unacceptable.”

It is imperative that a proper system of collecting and recording data related to tourism is created, and that both the departments form a consensus to use that common system.

People usually look at the statistics provided by the central and state tourism departments to ascertain the growth or decline of tourism in the state or the country, and the least they can expect is some uniformity in the figures provided by both departments.