Grow with domestic tourism
Domestic tourists today, have evolved, demanding state-of-the-art infrastructure, comfortable accommodation and are willing to spend on wellness activities. Sahai highlights the significance of domestic tourism in India.
In present times, the domestic segment continues to look upbeat with a strong double digit growth in India. As per the recent data compiled by the Market Research Division of Ministry of Tourism, during 2011, the number of domestic tourist visits to the States and UTs touched 851 million as compared to 748 million in 2010 and 669 million in 2009. In other words, the number of domestic tourist visits to states and UTs registered an increase of 13.8 per cent over 2010 as compared to an increase of 11.8 per cent in 2010 over 2009.
“Tourism is no longer an elitist activity, especially, when you look at the burgeoning growth in the number of domestic tourists visits within India.
Primarily, the biggest chunk of Domestic Tourism is based on Religious Tourism. However, domestic tourists, today, have evolved.
They require state- ofthe-art infrastructure, comfortable accommodation and are willing to spend on well- ness activities. This sector offers immense potential and the stakeholders in the travel and tourism sector needs to implant ways and means to extend the stay or hold domestic tourists longer near these religious attractions,” said Subodh Kant Sahai, Union Minister for Tourism on the sidelines of the recently held 4th edition of International Hospitality Fair ( IHF 2012) organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi.
IHF 2012 is an exclusive B2B event for the complete Hospitality related services, where Madhya Pradesh was ‘Focus State’ in the present edition.
“We at the policy front have initiated an ambitious project to create dedicated religious circuits across the country weaving together the places of religious attractions to different religious sects. We are also looking at giving a thrust to availability of quality budget accommodation by our proposal to convert the numerous guest houses, wholly or partly into a budget hotel,” he added.
Further, from the statistical perspective, presently the top ten states garnered over 85 per cent share in the total number of domestic tourist visits during 2011. The top ten States in terms of number of domestic tourist visits ( in millions), during 2011, were Uttar Pradesh ( 155.4), Andhra Pradesh ( 153.1), Tamil Nadu ( 137.5), Karnataka ( 84.1), Maharashtra (55.3), Madhya Pradesh ( 44.1), Rajasthan ( 27.1), Uttarakhand ( 25.9), West Bengal ( 22.3) and Gujarat (21.0).