Development of tourism can attract both inbound
foreign tourists as well as domestic tourists. I will here discuss first about the
inbound foreign tourist traffic, which can be on account of one or more of the
following broad-categories:
1) Medical
treatment
2) Culture
exploration (Culture/Religion)
3) Nature
exploration
4) History
exploration
5) Pleasure
tourism (Gambling / Leisure)
This is
first of series I am writing on tourism in India, in future blogs I will
elaborate on each of above categories.
I would like to share some data to understand the
inbound tourism in India and its contribution as a foreign exchange earner. The
figure below shows the total number of foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in India
and foreign exchange earnings (FEE) from tourism in India during 2010-2013.
Source: http://india.gov.in/spotlight/encouraging-inbound-tourism-tourist-visa-arrival-tvoa-scheme.
Accessed on 24 September, 2014.
In the year 2012 foreign tourists contributed about 17,737 million USD, which is approximately 3% of the total foreign exchange earnings. An estimated 6.62 million foreign tourists will arrive in India in 2013. However, these numbers are very small from a global comparison. India receives only about 0.6% of the world’s total international tourists which accounts for only 1.6% of the world tourism revenues. The top states/ union territories visited by the foreign tourists include Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Karnataka and Goa. These 10 states accounted for almost 90% of the total 2012 foreign tourist visits. (More statistics and comparisons about tourism visits can be found from - http://tourism.gov.in/TourismDivision/AboutDivision.aspx?Name=Market%20Research%20and%20Statistics). These data highlight the need and scope of future tourism development in India.
In an attempt to boost the inbound tourist traffic,
the Government of India has recently decided to offer visa
on arrival to about 180 countries. It is not known if this measure alone can
increase the inbound tourist traffic. In my view, there are some additional
supplementary measures which can further attract short duration foreign tourists
to India. These measures include:
1) Waiving
visa fees for short-stay visitors (period up to 1-2 weeks)
2) Improving
airport facilities, air-road/rail connectivity to important destinations
3) Incentivizing
Indian airline carriers to develop hubs focused on promotion of transit tourism
4) Promoting
more places to explore in and around major cities
Above requirements can be justified from tourism
development in places like Hong Kong and Singapore which have harnessed their aviation
hub status to promote tourist spending. A large number of tourists take a transit
break of one or more days while traveling to different global destinations.
This has implications for not only increasing tourist flows to India but may
also propel tourism in the Indian sub-continent.
The ‘Atithi Devo
Bhava’ (Guest is God) campaign run by the Ministry of Tourism in India has been
aimed at promoting tourism by enhancing the civic sense among the general
public and good hospitality practices on the part of tourism service providers.
To reap the benefits of the newly proposed liberal visa policy, we will have to
take more steps in the development of the tourist destinations and the modes of
transport. This can have a dual benefit to the country in addition to the
inbound tourists.
