Mystic India In February 2022, India’s Ministry of Tourism, in order to promote tourism, recognised the immense potential of rural tourism in India. One of the niche areas of tourism emerging in India that includes eco-tourism, culture tourism, religious tourism, medical tourism, wellness tourism, film tourism, sports tourism, adventure tourism, etc. rural tourism is a promising sector and the ministry is working on its promotion and development.
New India’s latest push for Aatmanirbhar Bharat has been instrumental in the realisation of this development where the ministry has formulated a National Strategy and Roadmap for Development of Rural Tourism in India. The strategy document focuses on key pillars:
Model policies and best practices for rural tourism; Developing clusters for rural tourism; Marketing support for rural tourism; Capacity building of stakeholders; Governance and institutional framework.
India offers everything a tourist desires – geographical diversity, cultural richness, attractive beaches, 30 World Heritage SBPM and 25 biogeographic zones. In November 2018, India attained third position in the world tourism sector after China and US.
An important sector for Aatmanirbhar Bharat
The Tourism and Hospitality industry is one of the largest service industries in India. To support the ‘Make in India’ programme and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, India’s tourism sector has refurbished itself in a big way. It’s playing the important role of an economic multiplier by creating jobs for India’s fast-growing economy.
India, with its rich history, culture and heritage is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It is one of the few nations that provide something for everyone. So, there are a string of options for ‘rich’ tourists looking for a comfortable stay or those looking for a royal, luxury experience and then there are myriad options for adventure seekers, those coming for experiencing new culture or to be close to nature and that too in a shoe-string budget – in all, India is self-sufficient and self-reliant in terms of providing diverse options to tourists of all kinds.
India ranked 34th on the world travel and tourism index driven by rich natural and cultural resources and the World Economic Forum ranked India as the fifth best destination on the Natural Heritage Index in the world.
Electronic tourist authorisations or e-Tourist Visa that was launched by the Government of India resulted in a significant increase in number of tourist visa issued in India. In 2019, a total of 29,28,303 tourists arrived on e-Tourist Visa and the facility was extended to citizens of 171 countries, as of March 2021.
Government entities further mission
The nodal agency in the country for the formulation of national policies and programmes and for the co-ordination of activities of various Central Government agencies, State Governments/UTs and the private sector for the development, promotion of tourism and marketing efforts and providing trained manpower resources is the Ministry of Tourism headed by the Union Minister and the Ministers of State.
Additionally, the ministry has a public sector undertaking known as India Tourism Development Corporation Limited(ITDC) that came into existence in 1966 as a primary entity for ‘progressive development, promotion and expansion of tourism’ in India. The objectives of ITDC include:
To construct, take over and manage existing hotels and market hotels, beach resorts, traveller’s lodges / restaurants; To provide transport, entertainment, shopping and conventional services; To produce, distribute, tourist publicity material; To render consultancy-cum-managerial services in India and abroad; To carry on the business as Full-Fledged Money Changers (FFMC), restricted money changers, etc.; To provide innovating, dependable and value for money solutions to the needs of tourism development and engineering industry including providing consultancy and project implementation.
ITDC has constantly strived to reinvent itself to keep up with changing times and pace of the industry and to keep the Indian tourism sector competitive and lucrative. ITDC has, since inception, diversified into new service-oriented business activities like consultancy and execution of tourism and engineering projects, training / education in the tourism and hospitality sectors, event management and mounting of Sound and Light shows.
Marketing and innovation hold key
Other than ITDC, the Ministry of Tourism also has autonomous institutions that further its primary goals. These include Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM) and National Institute of Water Sports (NIWS); National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology(NCHMCT) and the Institutes of Hotel Management.
Besides these, the Government of India initiated the Incredible India campaign – an international tourism campaign to promote tourism in India. The campaign has been more active since 2002 when the Ministry of Tourism made conscious and continuous efforts to rebrand the sector and bring in more professionalism to capitalise on the immense tourism potential of the country
The PR strategy aimed to promote India as the preferred destination of choice for travellers and even roped in many celebrities as brand ambassadors including Amitabh Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra even PM Narendra Modi.
In 2016, it was decided that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the mascot of the ‘Incredible India’ campaign. ‘No Bollywood actor will be engaged for the campaign aimed at attracting foreign travellers and video footages of Modi during the last two-and-a-half years where he has talked about tourism in India and abroad, will be used for the campaign’ as per a Ministry of Tourism official.
PM Modi’s new role was well supported because more tourists arrived in India from the nations that the PM visited. Also, India’s perception has drastically changed since PM Modi came to lead the nation. According to a ministry official, ‘tourist inflow from countries like the US, Germany, Fiji, Brazil, Australia, the UK, Canada and Myanmar, among others, has witnessed a significant jump after Modi’s visit to these nations’.
Future trends positive
In India, the tourism sector is expected to grow 6.9 percent annually to USD 460 billion by 2028, which is 9.9 per cent of the GDP. In 2020, the travel and tourism industry contributed USD 121.9 billion to India’s GDP. Projections expect this figure to go up to USD 512 billion by 2028. By 2028, Indian tourism and hospitality is expected to earn USD 50.9 billion as visitor exports as compared to USD 28.9 billion in 2018. International tourist arrivals are expected to reach 30.5 million by 2028.
India’s tourism sector accounted for 39 million jobs in the fiscal year 2020 that made for eight per cent of the total employment in the country. By 2029, the sector is expected to account for about 53 million jobs.
Tourism is a very important source of foreign exchange and in 2019, India earned foreign exchange of USD 29.96 billion recording a y-o-y growth of 4.80 per cent. Foreign exchange earnings (FEEs) from tourism in India witnessed growth at a CAGR of 8.96 per cent between 2007 and 2019.
The share of revenue from leisure travel to the tourism sector was 94.8% in 2019 and leisure travel spending reached USD 234.16 billion in 2019 which is expected to reach USD 432.3 billion by 2028 F. Similarly, business travel revenue was USD 12.84 billion in 2019 and that is expected to increase to USD 24.4 billion by 2028F
With the pandemic behind us and supportive policies and measures initiated by the government to boost the industry, the tourism sector in India is looking at a promising future.