Tourism industry demands for a ministerial committee

The umbrella forum of Indian tourism and travel industry has urged the Centre to set up a high level inter-ministerial committee to work out and implement urgent measures required to expedite growth of Indian tourism to keep apace with global trends.

"The decision to appoint an inter-ministerial committee is indeed a laudable step as there are more than 14 different ministries and agencies involved in promoting tourism. Now the industry looks forward to constituting the committee," said Vivek Nair, Chairman of World Travel and Tourism Council, India Initiative (WTTCII) here recently.

The government as well as the industry had set a target of taking foreign tourist arrivals from five million to 10 million by 2015. But this required certain critical policy decisions and support from the government.

It was with this view that an inter-ministerial committee was proposed a month back to work out recommendations, Nair, also MD of hospitality major Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, said.

"Tourism is already a major employment generating sector. If 2015 targets are achieved, the number of jobs offered by Indian tourism would leap from 50 million to 80 million," he said.

As the umbrella body of leading airline, hospitality and travel services, WTTCII has put forward several suggestions to accelerate growth of the tourism in view of the country’s high potential and world trends, he said.

Though travel and tourism industry had grown into one of the largest industries globally of 5,400 billion USD and generating 8.6 per cent of employment, India was yet to reap the full benefits.

Still, in India itself travel and tourism accounted for 5.9 per cent of GDP and 9.2 per cent of employment. Tourism in India accounted for 49.8 million jobs, which was higher than existing jobs in automotive and IT services.

Despite its inherent strength, Indian tourism and travel lagged behind many other countries, including Asian nations like Thailand. In beach tourism alone, 3.5 million foreigners visited Phuket in Thailand in 2009 while the number of foreign visitors to Goa was just 0.3 million,he said.