‘Tourism in India — An Economic Activity’, a book written by Anil K. Bhandari, chairman of AB Smart Concepts, was recently launched S.K.Misra, Chairman, Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development. The book has been published by Har Anand Publications. Many books have been written on Tourism but not as wide-ranging as this one. It covers the entire gamut of Tourism and its importance as an economic activity which will make it of immense help to Tourism students, planners, research scholars and stakeholders both in the public and private sectors,” Bhandari said.
Bhandari explained the importance of tourism as an economic activity globally. World Travel & Tourism’s direct contribution to GDP in 2011 was US $ 2 trillion and taking into account its direct, indirect and induced impacts, was US $ 6.3 trillion, representing 9% of GDP. The impact in job creation directly was 98 million while the direct, indirect and induced combination was 255 million jobs. In India direct contribution to GDP was Rs. 1,689.8 billion while total contribution was Rs. 5,651.0 billion. This contributed 6.4% to the GDP. Tourism directly supported 25 million jobs and, including indirectly, was 40 million jobs.
Government of India’s expenditure on Tourism development, starting from 1956, the first year of India’s 2nd Five-year Plan, till 2011, the fourth year of the 11th Plan, totals Rs 102.75 billion. In 2011, the number of FTAs was 6.29 million, a growth of 8.9% over 2010 and with Ministry of Tourism targeting over 12% growth rate in inbound as well as domestic tourists, it is projected that the tourism sector will generate additional jobs of about 2.5 crore during the 12th Five-year Plan.
