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Tourism Turns The Corner, Foreign Footfalls Rise
By ugeshji, Section News Posted on Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 12:54:08 AM EST
The tourism industry, battered and bruised by the double whammy of an economic slowdown and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is finally showing signs of an upturn with tourist arrivals registering a positive growth for the first time in six months.
 CROSSING THE HUMP: Foreign tourist arrivals rose year-on-year in June, for the first time in 6 months The increase is marginal over last year but the upswing is raising a round of cautious cheers in the tourism ministry as foreign exchange earnings have also gone up by Rs 400 crore. The growth in demand could be part of the "green shoots" the Budget hopes to nurture and given tourism's links with the service sector, the figures are good news. According to data collated by the tourism ministry, foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) increased from 3.40 lakh in June 2008 to 3.41 lakh in June 2009 while forex has gone up from Rs 3,409 crore to Rs 3,801 crore for the same period. "The growth in number of tourist arrivals is marginal but it has shown that Visit India campaign and our roadshows in various countries have made a difference. We have been able to curb the decline within six months. I will be happy if we can get 6 million tourists to visit India by year-end," tourism secretary Sujit Banerjee said. Source: Times Of India Tourism turns the corner, foreign footfalls rise Click On "Full Story" For More...
The last six months were not good for the sector. For the period January-June 2009, the number of tourist arrivals was recorded at 24.67 lakh, down from 27.19 lakh in 2008. Officials said India had witnessed a 10% drop in the flow of foreign travellers from November 2008.
The ministry has focused on new products like caravan tourism, wellness tourism and domestic tourism for the next 100 days. "We are focusing our energies on domestic tourism and will be conducting roadshows to promote various states," Banerjee said. Skill development and upgradation is also high on the ministry's priority after new minister Kumari Selja took over. The government plans to introduce two sets of programmes, one for existing workers while the other will be for fresh applicants conducted through state-run hospitality centres. The ministry has targeted training 5,000 people in a year in food production and hospitality.
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