Tourism

Indian tourism is one of the most diverse products on the global scene. India has 26 world heritage sites. It is divided into 25 bio-geographic zones and has wide ranging eco tourism products. Apart from this, India has a 6,000 km coastline and dozens of beaches. India's great ethnic diversity translates into a wide variety of cuisine and culture. India also has a large number of villages, plantations and adventure locations. India is home to a great variety of wildlife and its reserves are well known throughout the world. It also has one of the world's biggest railway systems opening possibilities for those interested in rail tourism. India also has excellent hospitals offering affordable medicare and traditional healthcare systems like Ayurveda. In addition to this, India organizes numerous fairs and festivals, which are quite attractive to foreigners.

Tourism sector holds immense potential for Indian economy. It can provide impetus to other industries through backward and forward linkages and can generate huge revenue earnings for the country. In the recent 2007-08 budget, the provision for building tourist infrastructue has been increased from US$ 95.6 million in 2006-07 to US$ 117.5 million in 2007-08.

Indian Tourism as an Engine of Economic Growth

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, India' s travel and tourism (T&T) industry is expected to contribute 2.1 percent to Gross Domestic Product in 2006 (INR 713.8 billion or US$16.3 billion).

In the first half of the Annual Plan period of 2005-2006, the Ministry of Tourism has taken several initiatives in the field of infrastructure development and positioning Indian tourism as a major engine for economic growth. These include:

• Emphasis for developing the existing and new destinations to world-class standards.
• Improvement of connectivity to important destinations
• Identification of 10-15 new destinations/ circuits by each state /Union Territories for development of the world class standard with all the required infrastructure components

Tourism: A Versatile Sector

• Medical Tourism: The ministry of tourism has taken several initiatives, in partnership with the private sector, to promote India as a destination for medical tourism and make it a global health destination. Several promotional measures like road shows and developing publicity material have been undertaken for the same.
• Rural Tourism: A concept of rural tourism has been developed for showcasing the art, crafts and culture of rural India and for creating gainful employment in villages with tourism potential.
• Cruise Tourism: India has a vast and beautiful coastline and hence the potential to develop cruise tourism.
• Convention Tourism: International convention Centres of the global standard is considered to be one of the important segments for promoting India as an attractive tourist destination in the global market. Ministry of finance has already identified New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa and Jaipur for opening of world-class convention centres. Several initiatives have been taken up by way of public-private partnership to develop small convention centres of high standard. India is undoubtedly a unique Conference Destination as it offers cultural and heritage sites, the exotic and mystical, excellent facilities of beach and adventure holidays which can be combined as pre and post conference tours.

Key Investment Areas

• Hotel industry
• Service apartments
• Adventure Tourism
• Health Tourism
• Convention centres
• Wildlife Tourism
• Highway Tourism
• Amusement Parks