India recently set the ground for revolutionising the Indian tourism and hospitality industry by approving the policy both for visa on arrival and through electronic travel confirmation for all of 180 countries except eight countries.
The early initiative on this was taken by the minister of tourism for India, K. Chiranjeevi. Under his suggestion, the Tourism Secretary and his team worked briskly along with a high powered committee of FAITH, the newly formed apex body – The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality to generate different scenarios of the impact on foreign exchange earnings and employment accruing from a visa on arrival regime.
They estimated that in the short term scenario India can get an additional 1.5 million foreign tourists and US$ 4 billion and in the longer term scenario India can target upto 20 million tourists and earn around US$ 36 billion from this move. This sector in 2012 got 6.5 m international tourists and US$ 17 billion+ in foreign exchange.
India’s smaller neighbours to its east get between them around US$ 140 billion in foreign exchange from tourism and more than 100 million international tourist arrivals. There is a huge market opportunity waiting to be tapped. The tourism sector in India, impacts around 40 million jobs and 7 lakh crores of economic output.