Dhauladhar Skiing Resort- Himalayan resort, developers bet on skiing in India

India holding the Winter Olympics? Improbable as it seems, entrepreneurs planning to build a huge international ski resort in the Himalayas hope to make this dream feasible.

A team of tourism developers wants to introduce skiing as a mainstream sport to a nation generally unfamiliar with slalom or snowplow.

Ski lovers internationally have lamented the limited opportunities available in the world's highest mountain range; skiing at the highest levels can be reached only by helicopter. Other than that, India has two small ski resorts, one in Kashmir (vulnerable to the fluctuating security situation) and one in the northern state of Uttaranchal(with limited skiing).

The planned Himalayan Ski Village would be on a grand scale. The creators of the project say they believe they can transform a new generation of rich, young Indians into ski enthusiasts.

The state government of Himachal Pradeshhas given preliminary approval for the construction of a $500 million ski resort in the DhauladharMountains north of the old hippie resort of Manali. Architectural plans show a complex designed to the standards of resorts like Aspen and St. Moritz,but in local Himalayan style.

"India is an extremely young country and has an average age of 26 - this is driving a lot of new trends," said John Sims, managing director and founder of Himalayan Ski Village. "At the same time as the drop in average age, there has been an economic boom and huge wealth creation. You have this young, rich population with nothing to spend their money on. There is a huge groundswell towards adventure tourism. Skiing is going to take off."

Ravi Teja Sharma, assistant editor of Travel Trends Today, a monthly industry magazine, was also confident that skiing would become popular.

"There's a crowd of young Indians, just out of college, with a lot money to spend," he said. "An older generation might have been content to go sightseeing or take a pilgrimage in their spare time. But these are people who have taken high-paid jobs in call centers or the IT industry, and as a rule, they like to spend their holidays trekking, mountain climbing and rafting. They're not the kind of people to sit around looking at buildings. Skiing is the kind of thing they would enjoy."

Sims, a tourism consultant, conceived the project while trekking in the mountains in the 1990s and says the proposed resort has the backing of local politicians and villagers who want to attract investment to the region.

The $150 million needed for the first phase of the development has already been raised, thanks partly to an investment by Alfred Ford, a great-grandson of the automobile tycoon Henry Ford who is chairman of Himalayan Ski Village and one of the project's most enthusiastic supporters.

Hotel chains like Hyatt and Oberoi are bidding to build large complexes in the resort, but Sims hopes the local spirit will dictate style rather than the big conglomerates; think curry and masala tea instead of spiced wine and fondue.

"This is not about massive villas and silver fox coats," Sims said. "I hope it will be about touching the mountains with reverence."

Initial plans for the Himalayan Ski Village include 300 villas and 700 five-star hotel rooms built over 20 hectares, or 50 acres, in an area 2,800 to 4,200 meters above sea level, or 9,200 to 14,000 feet. The land will be leased from the Himachal Pradesh government for 99 years.

Housing will range from cheap dormitories to chalets on sale for around $1.5 million. If the preliminary statement of support from the local authorities is translated into formal approval, construction could begin in 2007 and should take two years.

The builders expect the main market to be novice Indian skiers, but tourists from the Middle East and Europe will also be targets. As snowfalls become less predictable in Europe, the consortium also hope Europeans will travel to India to find better natural snow.

"People have been complaining about the snow in Europe for the past 15 years," said Glenn Trotman, the project's chief financial officer. "They are looking for new terrains."

Amitabh Kant,joint secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, said international investment was vital to get a project like this off the ground. "India has the potential, but we need an international player to bring in the necessary infrastructure," he said.

In the summer, the ski complex will be transformed into a hill station, and the hope is to attract large numbers of urban dwellers desperate to escape from peak temperatures of about 45 degrees Celsius, or 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

The project faces a number of serious hurdles. Manali is already overdeveloped and, with no airport of its own, it remains awkward to get to even from New Delhi, let alone from abroad.

The nearest airport, Kullu, is 45 minutes away and is served by one small airline, although developers say more companies are set to start flying there. The resort is a 12-hour drive from New Delhi along curvy roads, and there are no large railroad stations nearby.

The group says improvements to the roads are being planned by the state authorities, but admits that at present journey is "difficult but romantic."

More importantly, building such a large-scale resort in the Himalayas is likely to cause tension with environmentalists, who are already concerned about the impact tourism has had in the region. But Sims insisted that ecological sensitivity was a priority for the developers - from both a profit and moral perspective.

"We want to be sure that the development doesn't encourage an ecologically destructive follow-on development," he said. "We are '60s campaigners still - but we want to prove that responsible tourism is profitable."

Sims said environmental issues were increasingly at the forefront of tourists' minds, and that developers were under pressure to recognize their concerns.

"People that pay $500 to $1,000 a night to stay in the resort - some of them may have a brain and a few of them may also have a heart," he said. "We have to build this resort for the next generation of tourists who are going to care about these things.

"In 10 years' time our market is going to demand high standards of environmental awareness."

The group will have to prove their credentials to a skeptical audience in India. Tej Vir Singh, director of the Center for Tourism Research and Development in Lucknow,who has studied the environmental impact of ski resorts, said he had not seen the proposals but in general favored smaller developments.

"There are well-known problems of large-scale resorts which Alpine countries have faced," he said. "We favor building small centers which don't attract too many people and are easily absorbed into the local community."

S.K. Misra, chairman of Intach, a group that campaigns to protect India's cultural heritage, said his organization would assess the plans carefully to decide whether action needed to be taken.

"We don't like such activities to take place at high, unspoiled altitudes," he said. "If something looks like it will damage the environment or cause social problems, then we could take it to court."

SOURCE