As the services sector has finally started to overcome Covid hiccups, the Centre is planning to launch a new tourism policy soon which will aim at giving the maximum support to the most affected sector that created nearly 40 million jobs in 2019-2020 just before the pandemic struck.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Tourism organised a consultative meeting on draft national tourism policy.
In the next 10 years, the focus will be on digital tourism and green tourism, with hospitality sector, destination management skills in focus, and support to MSME related tourism.
“The idea is to make India one of the five most sought after tourist destinations in the next five years,” said an official, who attended the meeting.
Also Read: Goa needs right kind of tourists who contribute to GDP: Minister
The government may also look for alternative sources of funds for the development of India’s digital tourism. The foreign direct investment rules in the sector may also be eased to a certain extent.
By 2028, Indian tourism and hospitality is expected to earn $60 billion and the travel market in India is projected to reach $125 billion by 2027-28 from an estimated $75 billion in 2019-20.
Anand Rathi research shows the number of domestic tourist visits grew more than eight-fold to 2.3 billion in 2020 from 270 million in 2002, while the foreign tourist count climbed four times to about 11 million in 2019. However, overseas visitors dropped to 2.7 million in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The recently released S&P Global PMI numbers however, showed India’s services sector growing at an 11-year high of 58.9 in May. This, experts said, should open the doors for tourism once again after the pandemic.
