Indian government is giving fresh impetus to tourism industry to attract more foreign tourists. Though India is geographically large and more diverse than many countries but it still attracted only 5.08 mn foreign tourists compared to Paris, which saw 15.6 mn people visiting the city in 2007. Even a small place like Hong-Kong attracted 13 mn foreign visitors. It would be a big challenge for India to attract large number of visitors and snatch market share from even Asian countries.
Infrastructure remains the major hurdle in India. Most of the UNESCO sites don’t have quality hotels and there has hardly been any investment in such places. Even there are bottlenecks for first footfall, airports and docks for cruiseliners. Government has been trying hard to remove these hurdles by setting up additional airport terminals in places like Goa, Kochi, Chennai and Mumbai, which may improve visitors’ experience upon arrival but same can’t be said about their forward journey. Developing dock for cruiseliners will definitely boost both international and domestic tourism. Kochi’s experience with cruiseliners needs to be replicated in other parts of the country. It would give big boost to the tourism as we are peninsular country and cruiseline experience is very well limited.
At present, tourism contributes 6.4% of country’s GDP and accounts for 10% of the country’s employment. Government aims that an increase in the arrival of tourists will bring in additional revenue of USD10 bn by 2010 and would also generate 15 mn jobs for the country. This would definitely require proactive approach rather than mere policy announcements, which government is good at rather than execution.
Infrastructure remains the major hurdle in India. Most of the UNESCO sites don’t have quality hotels and there has hardly been any investment in such places. Even there are bottlenecks for first footfall, airports and docks for cruiseliners. Government has been trying hard to remove these hurdles by setting up additional airport terminals in places like Goa, Kochi, Chennai and Mumbai, which may improve visitors’ experience upon arrival but same can’t be said about their forward journey. Developing dock for cruiseliners will definitely boost both international and domestic tourism. Kochi’s experience with cruiseliners needs to be replicated in other parts of the country. It would give big boost to the tourism as we are peninsular country and cruiseline experience is very well limited.
At present, tourism contributes 6.4% of country’s GDP and accounts for 10% of the country’s employment. Government aims that an increase in the arrival of tourists will bring in additional revenue of USD10 bn by 2010 and would also generate 15 mn jobs for the country. This would definitely require proactive approach rather than mere policy announcements, which government is good at rather than execution.
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