Resurrecting Tourism in India

The pleasure of traveling or business travel is a concept of tourism. The philosophy and method of touring is to attract businesses, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and performing tours. Tourism could be internal or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing connections on a country's balance of payments.

Why do we travel?

Stress has turned into part of our everyday life. We all handle so much stress in our life that we want to be detached sometimes. Or pack our bags and runoff from our routine work for some weeks and return with no stress. Holidays are replete with lots of fresh air and sunshine, and they are fascinating too because you are not habitual of feeling this in your everyday routine life. We all understand the life we are living is far away from natural beauty, and the ungrateful reality is that we all are doing it, whether we like it or not, earning some penny for our living.

The solution is the Tour and travel business, where you can encounter the beauty of God's creation, explore new places, and meet new souls. Earlier, the tour and travel business had a different version. Still, these days it implies designing packages of vacation trips for families, college groups, couples, etc., where the package covers the traveling, hotel, food &beverages, and entertainment stuff.

Covid Impact on tourism

Research on the influence of coronavirus on tourism carried by the National Council of Applied Economic Research has stated that the pandemic created “notable” jobs losses in the tourism sector after the lockdown was imposed. On the opening day of Parliament, the tourism ministry referenced the NCAER report in reply to a question asked by Lok Sabha MPs Ramesh Kaushik and Raju Bista in which it stated 14.5 million jobs were lost in the first quarter, followed by 5.2 million jobs during the second quarter and another 1.8 million jobs during the third quarter of 20-21, after the lockdown was implemented.

The sponsored research resulted in an analytical report that used analytical models to estimate the loss to the economy in terms of tourism investment, projects that total compensation may only happen in 3-4 years, evaluates the loss to household incomes, and includes instructions for the revival of the tourism sector.

Tourism sees a revival after large-scale vaccinations in India

With the cooperation of large-scale vaccination programs and new models rolling out, the tourism sector is slithering its way back to healing. The restart of tourism wills kick-start recovery and growth, the Confederation of Hospitality, Technology and Tourism Industry. It is also necessary that the advantages this will bring are enjoyed widely and fairly, the industry body stated in a statement.

India is the most digitally advanced traveller nation in terms of digital tools being used for planning, booking, and experiencing a journey. India’s rising middle class and increasing disposable income has supported the growth of domestic and outbound tourism.

"The travel sector, particularly domestic travel, seems to be overseeing for a comeback. Indian travellers are looking for swift getaways through road trips, weekend breaks and staycations that offer local stay experiences," Airbnb India, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan General Manager Amanpreet Bajaj said. Travellers are also becoming increasingly aware of sustainable travel and are making environment-friendly choices when travelling, he added.

"The pandemic has aided promote environmental awareness among travellers and today, it’s encouraging to see people actively seeking sustainable travel choices," MakeMyTrip Co-Founder & Group CEO Rajesh Magow said.

In a similar vein, EaseMyTrip CEO and Co-Founder Nishant Pitti said, "We have noticed that Indian travellers have started making more sustainable travel decisions as the pandemic has made everyone think about the kind of impact they are creating while travelling." They are now more aware of their choices as they revaluate their plans keeping sustainability in mind, he added.

"The industry travel booking biases advise that in a year from now we will be seeing the best side for the travel sector. The demand we are observing is fairly allocated and holiday patterns have changed remarkably," OYO India & South-East Asia CEO Rohit Kapoor said.

Indian Tourism Statistics

Travel and Tourism, the most widespread service industry in India, was worth $234 bn in 2018. The industry has become one of India's largest Foreign Exchange Earners, with earnings of $29.962 billion over Jan 2019 – Dec 2019, equating to a growth of 4.8% over the previous year.

According to WTTC, India ranked 10th among 185 countries in terms of travel & tourism’s total contribution to GDP in 2019. During 2019, contribution of travel & tourism to GDP was 6.8% of the total economy, ~ 13, 68,100 crore (US$ 194.30 billion).

Government Initiatives – 2021

The Indian government launched a scheme to promote the tourism sector by implementing a one-month free tourist visa to 5 lakh tourists until March 31, 2022.

The Union Minister of State for Tourism & Culture, Prahlad Singh Patel, participated in the G20 tourism ministers' meeting to collaborate with member countries to protect tourism businesses and jobs and take initiatives to frame policy guidelines to support sustainable development and resilient recovery of travel and tourism.

In July 2021, the ministry drafted a proposal titled 'National Strategy and Roadmap for Medical and Wellness Tourism' and requested recommendations and feedback from several Central Ministries, all state and UT governments and administrations, and industry partners to make the document more comprehensive.

The government is planning to boost tourism in India by leveraging the lighthouses in the country. Seventy-one lighthouses have been identified for development as tourist spots.

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