Signs are Encouraging for Tourism in India: Selja
Tourism in India has already started showing signs of early recovery from the impact of global economic meltdown and in December 2009 tourist arrivals grew substantially by 21 per cent registering a growth of over eight per cent over the arrivals in December 2007 which was a year of high growth. India’s Tourism Minister Kumari Selja said this at the 5th Tourism Leadership Forum on the “Prospects & Challenge of Tourism Recovery for 2010/2011” held in Madrid, Spain. She informed the gathering that one of the reasons for the
tourism sector in India not being impacted as much as rest of the world was the good performance of the Indian economy. “In spite of the global economic recession in 2008 and 2009, Indian economy has continued has continued to have good growth. India’s GDP in 2008-09 grew by 6.7 per cent. During April-September, 2009 India’s GDP has seen a growth of seven per cent, whereas the global economy is estimated to have a negative growth in 2009”, she added.
The minister said the quantum jump in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Hotel & Tourism sector in the years 2008 and 2009 is also indicative of the positive scenario. Most of the major international hotel chains including Starwood, Hilton, Carlson, etc. have either already come to India or are in the process of doing so. These factors, coupled with the performance of in-bound tourism in India the last few months, are very encouraging for tourism in India. With the global economy too showing signs of recovery, the international tourism can be expected to revive worldwide.
The other high profile participants at the forum were, Christopher Rodrigues, Chairman of the British Tourism Board, Zhu Shanzhong, Vice Chairman of China National Tourism Administration, Charles Petruccelli, President of American Express Global Travel Services, Michael Frenzel, Chairman of TUI, AG, Geoffrey Kent, Chairman of World Travel & Tourism Council and Angela Grerekou, Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism of Greece.
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