[ad_1]
In 2019 Travel & Tourism accounted for over 10% of all jobs (333 million) and global GDP (USD 9.6 trillion) while international visitor spending amounted to over USD 1.8 trillion (6.8% of world exports). But India was able to capture less than 1.5% of this market in terms of international tourist arrivals and tourist spending. This share has only gone down in the post-pandemic years. This clearly shows that despite its rich cultural history and biodiversity India continues to underperform in our ability to capture value from international tourism.
Why is India unable to capture a bigger slice of tourism?
Tourism success for any region hinges on five A’s namely the country’s ability to provide world-class tourist Attractions, build Awareness for these attractions, ensure ease of Access, availability of high-quality Accommodation & Amenities options and create an ecosystem of Activities to extend the time spent at the attraction. Given India’s rich cultural heritage and natural diversity, we already have world-class tourist attractions. But even in cases where India has world-class tourism destinations and an incidental culmination of the other factors (Taj Mahal, Statue of Unity, Bodh Gaya etc.), we have been unable to maximise both the number of tourists as well as the amount spent by tourists at the destination.
Buoyed by the success of hosting nine G20 meetings, Goa now aims to showcase its ‘beyond just beach’ offerings, with a focus on infrastructure investments and exploring partnerships in new markets. In an exclusive interview with ETTravelWorld, Minister for Tourism, Govt of Goa, Rohan Khaunte shared that the state government is keen on boosting ties with other countries for enhanced air connectivity and keeping ‘quality over quantity’ in tourism.
For example, most foreign tourists that travel to India visit Agra. But given the limited diversity in experiences offered, most tourists spend less than two days in the city with most tourists choosing to do a day trip from Delhi. This significantly affects the average value captured per tourist by the city. This is because the idea of maximising value captured per tourist is not factored into the process of planning. Focusing on maximising average value captured per tourist involves making it easy to invest in immersive museums, light shows, night walks, food tours etc. This will not only increase the value captured by accommodation units but also increase expenditure on entertainment, restaurants, transport, gifts, and souvenirs etc. Hence, while India has done a decent with creating awareness, we have not been able to capture a bigger slice of the world tourism market given our inability to create world-class experiences by combining all five factors.
The need for integrated development of tourist destinations is well-established. The National Action Plan for tourism 1992 first talked about the creation of Special Tourism Areas and every policy since has echoed this idea. This means the problem with tourism development is more structural than conceptual. For example, improving the ease of access to any tourist destination requires investment in Airports, Roads and Railways. This means a tourism development plan should have buy-in and resource allocation from The Ministry of Road Transport and Highway, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Ministry of Railways.
After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer. While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, boosted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. Many arrive motivated by “revenge tourism” – so eager to explore again that they’re undaunted by higher airfares and hotel costs.
Similarly, depending on where we intend to create additional accommodation infrastructure, we need support from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change among others. Hence any meaningful attempt at the creation of a successful tourist circuit depends on our ability to successfully drive inter-ministerial coordination. This has been a key bottleneck in the past. And given its limited powers and resources for integrated development, the Ministry of Tourism has had to dedicate its efforts towards destination development (attraction) and marketing (awareness).
So, what is the solution?
There is a two-pronged solution that is required depending on the area that we are planning to develop. Given some tourist attractions lie in densely populated cities like the Golden Temple in Amritsar or Gateway of India in Maharashtra there is a need to work in collaboration with existing systems and form a coalition of diverse organizations and interests working together towards a common goal of ensuring the competitiveness and sustainability of the tourism destination.
This can be achieved by creating a Destination Management Organisation (DMO) whose primary role is to lead these collaborative efforts in a region and coordinate activities under a coherent strategy. By implementing a joined-up management approach, the DMO can effectively prevent overlapping functions and consolidate expertise to enable comprehensive and sustainable development. The primary focus on the DMO shall be to establish a competitive edge for both tourists and investors, and to unlock the true economic potential of tourism for the region.
In regions that are far from densely populated city centers achieving integrated development without running into inter-ministerial bottlenecks is only possible by developing these destinations as Investment Regions. We should declare high-potential tourism regions (example Hampi in Karnataka or Ellore in Maharashtra) as a Special Tourism Advancement Region (STAR) where all the powers required for integrated planning, development and success of the region are transferred to a dedicated tourism development authority.
After a busy summer vacation, tourists from Kolkata are planning Durga Puja travels well in advance vying for tried and tested south-east Asian countries as well as a set of new destinations that have emerged over the last couple of years, post Covid. While places like Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are topping the preference charts, there have been good queries for travel to new destinations like Ras Al Khaimah in UAE, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Japan.
For example, to improve access and create high-quality accommodation infrastructure the development body will need powers to acquire land, approve CLUs, grant permission for infrastructure projects etc. Similarly, different aspects of tourism development will require different powers to be transferred to the tourism development authority. All of this can easily be done by any state by passing a STAR Act that clearly outlines these powers.
This transfer of power has already been done for the development of Industrial areas in states like Gujarat and Rajasthan where the state has their Special Investment Regions (SIR) Act. While Gujarat has also developed its GIFT City by creating a special enabling framework to boost financial services sector. A similar approach for tourism can truly unlock the sectors growth and employment potential.
The structural challenges of the past have resulted in India underperforming in tourism. To address this, we need to strategise tourist destinations as Investment Regions and collaborate with private Hoteliers, Travel Agencies, OTAs, and other relevant stakeholders. Instead of solely focusing on attracting a larger volume of tourists, we must implement targeted interventions aimed at maximising the value obtained from each visitor. Without accomplishing this, tourism will merely contribute to the carbon footprint without making a significant impact on employment or GDP.
The author is Team Lead Strategy at The Foundation for Economic Development (FED)
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETTravelWorld.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETTravelWorld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.
[ad_2]
Source link
