'Goa could have been our Bali': Investor Shankar Sharma tears into India's tourism failures

Ace investor Shankar Sharma on Wednesday said India was failing to convert its tourism potential into a global attraction, citing poor infrastructure, hygiene issues, weak civic behaviour, and payment problems as major deterrents for foreign tourists.

"I am willing to lay the opposite bet," Sharma wrote in a post on X while responding to investor Vijay Kedia, who had described tourism as India's "next trillion dollar story".

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Sharma said he recently travelled in India with three foreign tourists and claimed that, beyond the Taj Mahal and Rajasthan palace hotels, there was little that international tourists could not experience elsewhere.

"When you look at it from the lens of F2 tourists, barring Taj Mahal & Rajasthan Palace Hotels, there is nothing else that they want to see here that they cannot get anywhere else," Sharma wrote. "And of course, the approach to the Taj, the less said the better."

He said international cards did not work in "many, many places" and foreign tourists were reluctant to carry large amounts of cash because of safety concerns.

Sharma also pointed to what he called "dirt, squalor", poor roads and weak civic sense. Referring to Delhi, he wrote: "Just outside beautiful Deer Park in Delhi, there is a dump truck permanently parked and never cleaned."

He further criticised "terrible driving ethics, whether it is at a red light or coming the same way on a one-way road, whether it is within the city or on highways" and said people lacked "basic manners of holding doors open or saying thank you".

Using Goa as an example, Sharma said India had missed an opportunity to create a global beach tourism destination comparable to Bali or Phuket.

"Goa could have been our Bali, Phuket. But for that, we need a swinging liberal culture, not moral policing. And yes, we need garbage-free roads," he wrote.

Sharma also questioned India’s foreign tourist arrival numbers, saying repeat visits by NRIs inflated the figures.

"Out of the 90 lakh tourists every year that come, I am counted a minimum of 20 times because I visit India that many times per year. NRIs are probably 40-50% of that number," he wrote, adding that "genuine" foreign tourists were "probably half".

Comparing India with destinations such as Bali, Phuket, and Vietnam, Sharma said those countries had “executed” better by building attractive and affordable tourism ecosystems.

"People want amazing places to spend money on. Bali has 80 lakh tourists. Happening nightlife. Super cheap. Phuket too. Vietnam," he wrote. "Here we only talk, and that’s where it ends."

Sharma's remarks came months after Kedia said India's tourism industry remained an "untapped goldmine", despite contributing an estimated $230 billion to the economy in 2023 and around $253 billion in 2024. Kedia had identified infrastructure, safety, ease of travel, hygiene, and marketing as the sector's "missing links".