NEW DELHI: As the effects of the third wave of the pandemic wane and travel gains momentum, India’s tourism associations on Wednesday said it hopes the country would have 75 million international tourists annually by 2035.
Currently, of the total tourist traffic in India, in volume terms, only 7.1% is inbound travel. The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH), representing tourism, travel, and hospitality industry bodies, said it hopes this would increase to 15.9% by 2035. This could drive revenues from inbound tourists up from 9.9% in 2019 to 13.2% by that year, it said. As per Statista, India saw 17.91 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2019.
In its 'India Tourism Vision Statement' that outlines goals and a tangible execution path for the country, the federation said it will present a paper to the government urging it to set up 200 centres of excellence across states through the 'Swadesh Darshan’ and ‘Prasad’ schemes.
These two programmes were launched by the government in 2015 to integrate the development of tourist circuits around specific themes and rejuvenate pilgrimage spots.
It will also request the government to set up at least five mega tourism zones, each with a potential to attract 10 million tourists. Under Swadesh Darshan, 13 thematic circuits have already been identified. These are for North-East, the Buddhist circuit, Himalayan circuit and Coastal circuit, among others.
The federation said there should be a target to add almost one million new hospitality rooms on identified land banks by that year and that tourism must be declared as a critical socio-commercial infrastructure.
Nakul Anand, the federation's chairpersons while referencing figures from the International Monetary Fund said, that despite its rich treasure trove and high rankings in cultural and natural resources as well as price competitiveness, India still ranked 34th in the ‘Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2019’ and could only capture 1.24% of the world’s international tourist arrivals. “The country's share is evidently a fraction of its potential. We, regrettably, have failed to realise the true impact of Tourism and convert our natural advantages into potential economic benefits," he said.
There’s a potential to increase the five crore Indians employed by the tourism value chain to 15 crore, the federation said. It expects nearly 7.5 crore Indians to get employed by tourism in the public and private sector in hotels, travel agencies & tour operations, tourism transportation, food services and destination management and services which are looking after tourists. Indirectly, too, it expects about 7.5 crore to find employment in ancillary and supporting services in the unorganised sector which are catering to the main tourist service providers.
PP Khanna, president of Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (Domestic Tourism) said, to encourage tourism, the goods and service tax (GST) on tour operators should be levied at about 1.8% instead of the current 5%.
