India, after Vietnam, has the potential to emerge as the second cheapest tourist destination in the world in a sector that is registering rapid growth owing to cost reduction and affordability.
This was stated by Toney K Thomas, Deputy Dean, Department of Tourism Studies, Taylor’s University, Malaysia. He was delivering the keynote address of Travel Log ’18, a two-day conference on ‘Tourism and the Digital Transformation’, here on Friday.
Organised by the Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Education Centre, in association with Department of Tourism, to provide a platform for all stakeholders including those from academia and the industry to share knowledge and research results of changes and new trends in the tourism sector.
Business model
Dr. Thomas said technology was changing the face of tourism but there were concerns about its disruptive nature. It could change the business model and the functional role of travel agencies.
While tourism was once restricted to the elite, technology has enabled reduction in cost and made tourism affordable to even middle and lower middle class. The expansion of the travel industry was also coupled with hyper personalisation in some cases besides creating new market segments with focus on affordability.
Low-cost tourism
In this context, Vietnam was promoting low-cost tourism. Its business model had changed resulting in a 20% growth in the sector.
Research indicates India could be the second low cost tourist destination in future, said Dr. Thomas. “In 1995, world tourism arrivals was 535 million but today this is almost the number of tourists visiting the Asia-Pacific region. Earlier, the Asia region was a specific market but today it is the Asians who are travelling to other countries,” he said.
Vijayalakshmi T. Muralidhar, secretary, MES, delivered the presidential remarks and pointed out that tourism industry was the largest and growing at a rapid rate. The sector has witnessed transformation due to technology and digitalization and enabled not only greater outreach through digital marketing and advertisement and apps but was witnessing innovations. Papers by participants were released on the occasion. The conference also features panel discussions on issues germane to the tourism sector.
