With all the bad news about the weather, I thought I would try to lighten things up a bit. It turns out that some people really like the rain, and South Asian countries are creating a monsoon tourism industry around them:

The Indian tourist industry has created tours and activities aimed at rain-starved Arab visitors. Open-air discotheques are billed as “rain dance floors.” Tour operators peddle sight-seeing trips, or “rain walks,” as relaxing excursions for “introspection” and “family bonding.”

The Indian state of Goa first started marketing itself as a monsoon destination about five years ago. Resorts in India and northern Pakistan began seeing more Arabs eager to experience the novelty of rain. Posters went up in travel agencies in the Gulf nations of U.A.E., Qatar and Kuwait, beckoning residents to “Come Feel the Rain.” Goa, on India’s west coast, says it attracted 55,000 Arab visitors during last year’s monsoon season, nearly three times as many as two years earlier.

“We’ve seen steady growth in business from them, all of it during the monsoon months,” between June and early September, says Pamela Mascarenhas, deputy director of Goa’s state department of tourism. [cite]

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p>This is very clever counter-cyclical business development. Usually resorts are only bustling during the dry season, and have to make enough money then to cover their expenses during the rainy season. Now they can use their capacity year round, thus increasing their earnings and dramatically cutting their exposure to risk.

As a child, my father would have loved to go on a vacation like the one described. He grew up in a very dry part of Punjab and was fascinated to discover that there were places in the world that got over 10 feet of rain a year. He instantly wanted to move to one of these places and was disappointed when my grandfather wasn’t ready to uproot the family and move to a tropical rainforest!

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p>Here’s more from the same article, showing one family’s Bizarro beach vacation:

Haya Bin Hammad’s smile faded as she stepped off the plane here to start a family vacation. Her Barbie umbrella was already open, but there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight.

“What is this?” Haya’s father muttered as he saw the disappointment on his 7-year-old daughter’s face.

Fortunately for the Bin Hammad family, the weather was cooperating by the time they left the airport. Torrential rain beat down on them. “Look, Daddy! God has sent us rain!” Haya said, beaming at her father.

Day two brought sporadic downpours. When it began raining shortly after breakfast, Haya dragged her father and 18-year-old uncle, Mohammed Hassan, to the pool. Mr. Hassan plugged in his iPod earphones, grabbed a chaise lounge, and stretched out to soak up the rain. This was his routine for the next three days. “The sound of rain is relaxing,” he said.

Haya and her father jumped into the pool as Haya’s mother, Amjad, watched from a nearby table. The resort staff had organized a contest to see whether Haya or her dad would be first to fill plastic tubs with rainwater. Father and daughter lifted beach buckets above their heads to catch the rain, then waded to the side of the pool to dump them into the bigger tubs.

“At home it’s very hot and I’m not allowed to play outside because my mother says it’s not good for me. Here, I can play outside all day because it’s raining and it’s good for me,” she explained.  [cite]