It is time for Ayurveda Tourism

Heritage in Sri Lanka takes you beyond the sun, sand and sights. Sri Lanka is not only about the sea resorts and Cultural Triangle but there are more fascinating aspects to its rich cultural heritage. For example, it is home to a traditional ancient art of healing - Ayurveda.

This ancient art of healing is believed to be older than any other systems of medicine. It is based on the five elements (or Pancha mahabhuta), which means earth, water, fire, air and space. Ayurveda studies an ailment or disease in relation to these five elements and then prescribes a cure accordingly using herbs and plants for treatment.
 

Today, in India, (particularly Kerala) Ayurveda Tourism is quickly becoming a new dimension in the health tourism niche market, now a million-dollar industry.

They have proven that Ayurveda Tourism can accrue benefits to the health-conscious tourist who engages in this therapeutic form of tourism by providing them with real knowledge of how to make the best use of the treasure that is Ayurveda.

India did it very well. They developed and refined the Ayurveda tourism to such an extent that their tourism growth in the last few years began a steep upward trend.

The growing demand for “health holidays” - whether to test the Ayurveda medicine’s claims to rejuvenate mind and body, or simply for regeneration and relaxation - has come from both Western and Asian markets.

Europe is an important source of Health tourism for India - accounting for 35 per cent of arrivals as against 40 per cent from within Asia and 17 per cent from the Americas.

Lesson from India

We, too, could learn a lesson from India. Our tourism industry needs different strategies to market and promote ourselves if we are to compete with India.

In short, we must have a good game plan. We have to create a brand for Sri Lanka of Ayurveda. However, in this “marketing” of brand image, there are few vital factors, which need emphasis.

First of all, the Ayurveda authorities should be committed to implement good manufacturing practices for Ayurveda drugs in the country to ensure that quality medicines reach the market and the consumers feel confident of their safety and efficacy.

Stern action should be taken against drug manufacturers who violate these provisions and fail to bring out quality products.

The second factor is that we need to validate medicinal plant products on international standards. Herein also the responsibility lies on the Ayurveda authorities.

They should start implementing a coordinated research project with a collaborative involvement of the Medical Research Agencies eventually to create new vistas of research and development of remedies and drug validation through a reverse pharmacological approach.

In this particular aspect, India did well again. Their Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) conducted a study on Indian medicinal and aromatic plants.

The objective of the study was to identify, market opportunities for India in the medicinal and aromatic plants domain and to coin strategies to promote exports.

The Indian Government has taken necessary steps to promote Indian herbal medicines in the global market. They implemented a strict testing procedure for all herbal Ayurveda medicines to be exported.

This has been done to meet the regulatory requirements of importing countries.

Even after recognising that Ayurveda tourism had a tremendous potential in the country, the Indian Government was determined not to deviate from the hallowed principles of Ayurveda.

The Government issued guidelines for running Ayurveda Medical Centres so that the Local Government Authorities could take a leading role in building up a credible Ayurveda tourism sector in the country.

As in any field, with success comes associated problems. As the tourist influx began to expand in India, there popped up like mushrooms Ayurvedic massage parlours.

Most of the time, they were managed by incompetent persons and for immoral activities. On the other hand, unlike other streams of treatment like Allopathy and Homoeopathy, Ayurveda has treatment that help rejuvenation.

This trait makes it vulnerable to be excessively commercialised. The Indian Government understood that there were no proper mechanisms to check the kind of treatment offered at these places and brought a Bill prescribing an Ayurveda Director as the licensing authority for massage parlours.

A team constituted by the Director will inspect each parlour and verify its facilities before issuing the licence, which will be for a period of three years. Indian experience should be an eye opener to us.

Our dependence on cheap package beach vacations as the main segment for tourist development has to be replaced with new strategies. Our ancient Ayurveda medication seemed to fall in line with the demand from a large sector of holidaymakers. It is high time we make this product become an integral part of our tourism profile.