Sujit Banerjee, secretary of India's Ministry of Tourism, talks to ABTN about the importance of tourism to India, and what visitors have to look forward to in coming months.
How much is tourism worth to India?
Tourism is worth 6.23% of our GDP, and in terms of contribution to total employment it is 9%. These are significant numbers and it's an important sector. In the last 12 months we have done some things to bring the sector back into focus. Even though 2009 was a very adverse year which started badly when we had H1N1 hitting us and saw the year with a 17.9% negative growth in January 2009, by the end of the year we were around minus 3.3% in foreign tourist arrivals but compared to minus 4.3% in the whole world, we did better than most. And in terms of foreign exchange it was minus six while ours was minus three per cent. And we are very hopeful that 2010 will be a great year.
Where are your visitors coming from?
The most tourists come from the USA, number two is the UK, then Bangladesh, then Germany, France and Australia. Japan is also in the first 10. We have also put many policies into force which will enable tourists to come on short haul trips, so visas on arrival have been given to five countries - Japan, Singapore, Luxembourg, Finland and New Zealand. Our feeling is that from Singapore people will come for a long weekend. This sort of thing will increase in a very big way. We might extend to other countries, but there are various stages. At the moment we have multiple entry long term visas for some 18 countries and we no longer look for reciprocal arrangements - we used to at one time, but now we realise we want the tourists. My target market is Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the cold countries! Our adverts show our warm weather when you are having blizzards. We also face challenges, there are not enough flights over to South America. Air India has a hub at Frankfurt and Lufthansa is on the Star Alliance, but it's not the same as having a direct flight to Spain or one stop to Brazil.
Airports have often been criticised in India
Our airports are going through great transformation. Terminal 3 at Delhi will have 90 plus counters and there are similar improvements at Hyderabad and Bangalore. Mumbai is going through it and 33 non-Metropolitan airports are going to be upgraded, some through the contribution of the ministry of Tourism. We see these airports taking more traffic and some of it international traffic.
I think the Commonwealth Games [in Delhi] will help our reputation for punctuality with regards to the airlines. It's a national event, and many people will be using Mumbai as a base or a hub.
There also seem to be domestic advertisements on Indian TV about not hassling tourists.
The campaign is called "Our guests are like privileged people of India" or "Our Guests are like god" and we are running through an iconic Bollywood actor. When he speaks, everyone listens.
Do you still have a shortage of hotels?
For the Commonwealth Games in and around Delhi there was a shortage of 30,000 and we are going to be able to provide them. We are getting 10,000 more new hotel rooms, and the rest will be made up through bed and breakfast, upgrading our development authority flats into three or four star guest house rooms.
In general, there is a big shortage of hotels, around 150,000 rooms short nationally, and of those 100,000 would be budget hotels. We have allowed 100% direct foreign investment in the hotel sector but not many hotels have come in because of the difficult economic conditions. That's a big worry for us. We had a capital subsidy scheme and we are going to be reviving that scheme - it has to be subsidised at difficult times - so there will be greater incentives.
What will you do to encourage business travellers?
We will encourage them to visit our wellness and health sites - not spas, but ayurvedic resorts. Or going after your two-day conference for sightseeing in Kashmir. There are so many niche products.
And meetings and events?
The MICE market is a big market, but India's contribution is still very small. We need to have a convention centre in as many cities as possible, Hyderabad has a good one, but others have conference centres only in hotels. The Ministry of Tourism will help fund those and we are giving money to the State governments to build them. Two State Governments in the north east have sought our funds. So, within the next 36 months they will appear, but these have not been announced, yet. We are also trying to bring conferences to our country in the shoulder months.
There are other things we are doing. Firstly, at the moment there are 64 agencies collecting clearances that a hotelier needs before he can set up a hotel. We have now made it one application to the Hospitality Development and Promotion Board which will soon be established, with the state taking on more of the responsibilities. It's one of the reasons the hotels have not come, because of the bureaucracy.
Secondly, we are looking at caravan tourism where you hire it, go on the highways, and the parking bays have all the facilities. We will also stop the collecting of tax at state borders, that will be collected in the beginning, as the responsibility of the tour operators, and it will have a hologram on the windscreen that proves the payment.
And finally, heritage sites are beautiful but the facilities around them are not, so we have outsourced that and you will have the best toilets, ATMs and tourists shops so that no one has any problems.
So, things are changing, and I'd say that the Ministry of Tourism is acting as a catalyst for these changes.
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