MUMBAI - India's recent federal budget
offered little to the country's US$12 billion
tourism industry, but its practitioners could take
comfort from the immediately preceding annual
Economic Survey for 2007-08, which predicted
continued bright prospects after more than 25%
growth over the previous year.
Last year's
record earnings could be merely scratching the
surface of a gold mine if India backs up its
"Incredible India!" promotional campaign - which
won the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)
Gold Award last year - with better tourist
infrastructure and if the government capitalizes
on the country earning the coveted world number
one top travel destination ranking in the latest
Conde Nast Traveller UK awards.
India
jumped ahead of Italy, Thailand, Australia and New
Zealand in the world's top five most-preferred
tourist destinations from
fourth a year earlier and 10th in
2004. A Lonely Planet survey of 167 countries also
ranks India among the world's top five most
popular destinations.
Last financial year,
when more than 5 million tourists arrived, was the
fourth running that India's growth in arrivals
picked up pace, with an increase of 13% from
2005-06, according to governmental data. India
expects to host 6 million tourists in 2007 and 10
million by 2010.
"Tourism has high
potential for generating both income and
employment across the country," President Pratibha
Devsingh Patil told Parliament on February 25.
"The 'Incredible India' campaign has given a
thrust to tourism in India, with foreign tourist
arrivals touching 5 million for the first time.
Foreign exchange earnings from tourism touched
US$12 billion in 2007."
Businesses at the
tourism frontline are seeing more than just an
increase in numbers.
"Compared with five
years ago, we are seeing more arrivals of
higher-spending tourists," says Suresh Pundir, a
hotelier in the north Indian tourist hot-spot
state of Uttarakhand, at present host to an
international yoga conference in the Himalayan
town of Rishikesh. His guests are also coming from
an increasingly diverse range of countries.
"Earlier we primarily had tourists from
the USA, UK and Israel, but now there is a sudden
huge increase in visitors from Russia, Brazil,
South Korea and France," he said. At the same
time, they are seeing a greater variety of
experience, looking for adventure such as
white-water rafting, trekking and mountaineering.
India is also this month (March 21-24)
hosting the second international conference on
"responsible tourism", in Cochin, in the southern
state of Kerala, with 400 delegates and speakers
from 20 countries expected to attend. The first
conference was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in
2002. The conference aims to create greater
involvement in making the industry sustainable in
terms of local economies.
India is sharing
in a broader travel boom, with the region expected
to lead world tourism growth this year, according
to the World Travel Trends Report last month from
the ITB Berlin travel fair and researcher IPK
International. China, with the Beijing Summer
Olympic Games, and India are touted to lead the
way.
The World Travel Trends Report says
Asia-Pacific continues to lead expansion of the
world's tourism trade, with international arrivals
in the region increasing by over 10% in 2007,
following an 8% growth in 2006.
Outbound
tourism is also buoyant, according to Asian Travel
Monitor, with China, South Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, India, Malaysia and Thailand scoring
over 70 million outbound trips combined, with a
total annual spending of over $147 billion.
The MasterCard Worldwide Index of Travel
confirms that Asian-Pacific outbound traffic will
continue soaring, with an estimated 79.5 million
outbound tourists in the next six months. More
than 25% of the region's outbound tourists will be
from the Chinese mainland, according to
MasterCard, which estimates a 12.4% year-on-year
increase to 21.6 million outbound Chinese tourists
from January to June 2008.
A stronger
rupee, which has appreciated more than 10% against
the US dollar in the past year, is having an
impact, making travel abroad cheaper for Indians
while inbound tourist operators are reporting a
drop in business as the country becomes a more
expensive destination for overseas visitors.
India led growth in visitor numbers to the
US in 2006-7, with a 45% increase on a year
earlier, ahead of China (26%), Mexico (18%) and
the Middle East (18%).
India's growing
economy and increased affluence are also
encouraging domestic tourism, which is growing 25%
annually. Combined with the growing number of
overseas visitors, that is adding to the strain on
the country's infrastructure. Industry sources,
for example, estimate that India has a shortage of
100,000 hotel rooms.
Neither did the
federal budget grant the demand for the
hospitality industry to be given infrastructure
status that would enable easier flow of
investments.
Even so, Finance Minister
Palaniappan Chidambaram disappointed
tourism-related businesses when his February 29
budget largely ignored the industry while offering
exporters government sops to offset the impact on
them of the strengthening rupee.
The
industry, according to the India's Tourism
Ministry, employs over 42 million people and
contributes 6.11% of India's gross domestic
product.
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