27-11-2012, 11:53 AM
Travel and Tourism Industry in India: Looking East
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Tourism is an important catalyst in the socio-economic development in the modern
times, contributing in multiple ways and strengthen the inter-connected processes. While
often portrayed as panacea for many evils such as underdevelopment, unemployment,
poverty eradication, social discrimination and so on; its contribution in creating a global and
regional socio-political environment for peaceful co-existence of the cultures and societies has
been equally established at various levels. Perhaps, this realisation took many advocators to
position tourism as one of the biggest ‘peace industries’, a means to strike equilibrium of
global peace process though development. Because, tourism practiced in responsible and
sustainable manner bring about the peace and prosperity of the people and that its
stakeholders share benefits in fair manner, which is a necessary condition for the equilibrium
of sharing to sustain.
Due appreciation of such key role of tourism in development and global solidarity is
forthcoming in recent years. The U.N systems have been well on record about the growing
significance of tourism, which can be traced back to the 1980s. The latest being the candid
endorsement of U.N Secretary General who went on to state as precursor to his World
Tourism Day 2011 message: “tourism’s ability to generate socio-economic opportunities and
help reducing the gap between rich and poor is more important than ever”. This statement
acquires significance in the face of the economic crisis in recent times. Hence, any formulation
on tourism and its role in the society and economy must be rooted in due cognizance to the
contribution of tourism in the development process and according its rightful place and
position in the economic planning and programming.
Understanding Present Status of Global Tourism
The phenomenon of tourism since 1950 has been remarkable in terms of growth,
spread and diversification. The international tourist arrivals since then have grown from mere
25 million to reach 940 million in 2010. The fast growth and spread not only resulted the
globalisation of people’s movements as never before but also contributed in creating a vibrant
industry and opportunities for millions of people.
It is equally remarkable that irrespective of many challenges- at times far reaching in
nature like economic threats, war and political instabilities, natural calamities and the liketourism
as an economic activity could withstand the test of the time and demonstrated its
resilience as well as positioning in the modern way of living.
Figure- 1 is revealing of the contemporary nature of tourism. During 1990-2010,
international tourist arrivals grew from 435 million to 940 million, recording an average
annual growth of 5.8%, hiccups in some years notwithstanding. During this period, the
international receipts also recorded considerable growth from USD 262 bn. to USD 919 bn.,
and its average growth has been more than double to that of the arrivals at about 12.54%.
Regionally, international arrivals can be seen growing faster in emerging economies at a rate
of about 7% compared to the world average of 4.45% during 2005-2010 (Table-1).