India Travel industry has now regaining itself on the back, with the latest Conde Nast Readers’ Travel Awards having voted India as the seventh best tourist destination in the world. India bested countries such as Thailand, Greece, Brazil and France to pole-vault into the top 10 list. This would not have been possible had the fundamentals of the tourism industry not been strong. India has a wide range of both heritage and natural beauty to offer. Inbound arrivals have gone up by 10% in the first seven months of this year. This is not to say there isn’t any scope for improvement. There are several key areas that need attention in order to derive maximum returns from the tourism sector.
As we know that many of our heritage sites are in a deplorable state of disrepair. The problem lies in haphazard management, divided between the Center and the states Governments. The possibility of a single nodal agency for preservation of all historical monuments along with the participation of private players in maintaining them needs to be populated. The future of the tourism industry lies in customizing services. The government would do well to provide greater support to niche segments such as medical tourism and spiritual tourism by creating the infrastructure hotels, budget hotels, transport facilities, easier visa norms, etc to facilitate their growth. In the context of security for foreign tourists, a dedicated tourist police force is a good idea. An integrated approach whereby the tourism industry benefits from other sectors and vice versa is the way forward. The government should keep in mind that tourism generates more jobs for every rupee invested than almost any other sector. It’s also more environmentally benign than, say, heavy industry.
