Report

12 Tourism and Travel
Related Services 1
INTRODUCTION
Tourism and travel-related services sector is regarded
as the world’s largest industry and one of the fastest
growing, accounting for over one-third of the value of
total world-wide services trade. According to WTTC,
travel and tourism can bring prosperity to host
communities, creating jobs in deprived or rural areas,
where there are often few viable alternatives (WTTC
2003–04). It employs a relatively high proportion of
women, minority groups and those with a low skills
level, and encourages entrepreneurship with few
barriers to setting up in business.
The most striking feature of South Asian tourism
is its one of the lowest share in total international tourist
arrivals. In 2006, South Asia received merely 8.9 million
foreign tourists, which was barely 1.1% of the total
world tourist arrivals (World Tourism Oganisation
2007). In fact, in the Asia and the Pacific region South
Asia receives the least number of foreign tourists (Table
12.1). However, one positive sign is that in 2006 the
growth rate of arrivals has been the highest at 11.7%
in South Asia from all regions in Asia and the Pacific.
Similarly, in terms of international tourism receipts, the
share of South Asia in the world in 2006 was 1.6%
(Table 12.2) and the growth rate was the highest –
almost 14% – in the region. Another positive sign was
that the receipts per arrivals were the second highest
after Oceania. Nevertheless, all this is happening at a
fairly low base and South Asia has to take a number of
drastic measures if it is to attract a sizeable number of
tourists commensurate to its potential. This is also a
region consisting of countries like the Maldives, Nepal
and Bhutan whose economies, to a large extent, are
dependent on tourism.
According to the World Tourism Organisation
(WTO), from the South Asian region India is the only
1
The chapter is based on the report authored by Shailendra Kumar.
country that figures in the list of the top 50 countries
in terms of international tourist arrivals by country of
destination and ranked 42nd with 4.4 million tourist
arrivals in 2006. Similarly, in terms of international
tourism receipts too India is the only country from this
region that figures in the list of top 50 countries of the
world and India did much better in terms of receipts
by earning $8.9 billion and ranked 21st in 2006. This
seems to be chiefly because the number of days spent
by an average tourist is relatively high for India
suggesting the country has enormous tourism potential.
In regard to outbound tourism also India does fairly
well as its tourists spent $7.4 billion in 2006 and the
country ranked 23rd among the top 50 countries of
the world spending the highest amount of money on
tourism. It is indeed interesting to see that Pakistan is
the only other country form South Asia that has made
to the club of top 50 countries in terms of international
tourism expenditure implying that it is an important
tourism market in the world. From South Asian point
of view India and Pakistan offer large markets and even
if other countries could grab a small pie of it, it could
change the landscape of tourism in other countries.
According to the WTTC (2005), on an absolute
scale, India is one of those countries where the travel
and tourism demand is expected to grow the most
between 2006 and 2015. India is expected to grow its
demand to about $57 billion and should be ahead of
Canada and behind eight countries in the list of top 10
countries expecting the highest tourism demand.
Moreover, on an employment scale, India is expected
to perform better than the absolute scale as by the year
2015 it is likely to generate almost two million new
jobs thereby becoming the fifth largest country in terms
of job creation. Interestingly, in the list of top 10
countries expected to generate the maximum number
of jobs in the tourism sector there is one more country