Tourism Industry in India: A Road Ahead

Tourism Industry in India: A Road Ahead

Author Name : Meenu

ABSTRACT  The Indian tourism industry has emerged as one of the key drivers of growth among the services sector in India. The second-largest sub-segment of the services sector comprising trade, repair services, hotels and restaurants contributed nearly US$ 295.7 billion or 19.2 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015-16, while growing at 8.9 per cent year-on-year. Tourism in India has significant potential considering the rich cultural and historical heritage, variety in ecology, terrains and places of natural beauty spread across the country. Tourism is also a potentially large employment generator besides being a significant source of foreign exchange for the country. Tourism plays an important role in employment generation and economic growth of the country. It is accepted as the potent engine for inclusive social economic progress at universal level through its forward and backward linkages and ability to create employment in the economy. Tourism sector has a very high employment potential with approximately 90 jobs creation per Rs. 10 lakhs of investment. There is high scope for profuse employment generation and related activities in the form of accommodation projects, food oriented projects, amusement parks and water sports etc. So, this lecture is to study FTAs in India and FEEs from tourism and to study contribution of Tourism in GDP and Employment of the nation. Various reports, newspapers, journals, articles etc have been considered for the present study.