India is the land of Bollywood, but Dubai has a Bollywood theme park, and not Mumbai where it should legitimately be. This is perhaps the most glaring example, among others, of how the country has failed to capitalise on one of its biggest tourist icons.
Participants in panel discussions at the India Travel Summit 2016, organised by Thomas Cook India, looked at the potential for growth in this industry, besides the areas of focus. Infrastructure, for instance. “For the next five years, there cannot be any growth in Mumbai.There are plans for a second airport, but they came a bit too late. There is no capacity growth that we as an airline can achieve in Mumbai,” said Ragini Chopra, Vice- President, Corporate Communications and Public Relations, Jet Airways.
“In terms of potential, we are hugely underperforming,” said Suman Billa, Joint Secretary (Tourism), and quoted statistics to substantiate that — inbound traffic in India is in excess of 8m, but for Dubai, it’s at over 12m. The growth potentialis enormous, he said. India has 32 world heritage sites, and a 7,517 km long coastline, but have just 5 per cent of the world tourism pie. Those who will drive the next wave of travel are the millennials, who number 440 m. Of these, Generation Z (those born post-2000) are at 390m. Besides, the high net worth segment is expected to grow six-fold by 2030. India is also estimated to be the fifth largest economy by 2025. Tourism departments the world over have structured marketing programmes around these numbers – whether it is Switzerland selling its cheese as vegetarian, France boasting of its first ever Bollywood film shot entirely in Paris, or Australia capitalising on surveys that show Indians believe its wine is the best in the world. They are also coming up with digital campaigns to lure the young Indian traveller. Urs Eberhard, Head of Markets for Switzerland Tourism, said India had the largest Facebook community among all its source markets in the world, while G.B. Sridhar, Regional Director – South Asia, Middle East and Africa – Singapore Tourism Board, said his country was focused on moving its pitch to the “sophisticated knowledge traveller” from just the “sophisticated traveller”, while keeping in mind that Indians are price-conscious travellers.
The challenge then, is to ensure that India has similar plans to lure tourists to destinations beyond Rajasthan, Kerala or Goa. David Scowsill, President and CEO, World Travel and Tourism Council, had a few ideas to share. One, India needs a co-ordinated public-private strategic plan in place. Two, it needs to continue its visa reforms. And lastly, it needs to stay focused on improving infrastructure.
