Impact of Tourism on Indian Economy

First of all, what does tourism mean? Tourism is an activity carried out by any person or group of people who are going from one place to another or from one country to another in order to visit a particular place or several places. Tourism can used for entertainment or relaxation and to learn new information about other cultures (Lundberg 4).

Over the last 60 years, tourism has benefited from continuous growth and diversification, becoming one of the largest as well as the fastest growing world’s economic sectors. Tourism becomes one of the major categories of global trade in services. Nowadays, 7% of global goods and services exports are contributed by international tourism, and for the last four years, it has grown faster than the general global trade.[ Exports from international tourism rise 4% in 2015, (2016, May 6). Retrieved from http://media.unwto.org/press-release/2016-05-03/exports-international-tourism-rise-4-2015]

Goeldner and Ritchie (1995) define tourism as a short term movement of people to places other than their normal place of residence and work, including the activities of persons travelling to and staying in locations outside their places of residence and work for not more than twelve months for the purpose of: leisure (recreation, vacation, health, study, religion and sport); and business family, mission and meetings.

Tourism plays a vital role in economic development in most countries around the world. The industry has not only direct economic impact, but also significant indirect and influential impacts. There is agreement among experts that the travel and tourism sector is the fastest growing of global economy. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism receipts surpass US$ 1 trillion in 2011, growing about 3.8%up from 2010 (WTO, 2012).

Tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure , business or other purposes (Holloway and Taylor 2006;6).

Tourism is often synonymous to traveling for pleasure and education. It is also a business of attracting tourists and providing for their accommodation and entertainment. In many countries, tourism is an industry for earning Inland Revenue and foreign exchange. The many businesses that grow concomitantly with development of tourism include airlines, shipping, hotels and restaurants, finance companies, tour operators, travel agents, car rental firms, caterers and retail establishments and together,

Tourism is one of the most exciting and progressive industries in the world. Tourism today is a leisure activity of the masses. People travel to international destinations to break the regular monotony of life. They are mainly attracted by either the scenic beauty of its nature or by fascinating leisure, sports and adventure activities offered by the destination. However, every destination has some internal strengths and weaknesses that either enhance its capacity to attract foreign visitors or diminish it. Similarly the external environment can create various opportunities or exposed to threats as well.

An accurate definition of tourism is when individuals travel for pleasure or it may be the business catering for people who do this. There are many reasons as to why people might visit different locations. It could be to explore different civilizations and ethnicities for example, Greece; or it could simply be to experience a different lifestyle and to take a break from their usual routine and rest, for example, Venice.

During the past years, tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka extended a new height in 2010, registering a growth of 46.1 percent to 654,476 from the 2009 figure of 447,890. In absolute terms, this amounted to an increase of 206,586 in arrivals during one single year, which again is unique in the history of tourism in Sri Lanka. In December 2010 alone tourist arrivals was 82,627, the highest to receive in any one particular month. According the continuous growth was dropped again in 2013. So it creates the unbalanced tourist arrivals and it affects the issue on the tourism industry (Business times, Sri Lanka‘s tourism target tumbling off target,

Various Forts, Natural sites etc. Since 2000 tourism industry has been giving a number of benefits to India. The number of foreign tourists visited India which has given foreign exchange earning to the Country[1].

The tourism industry alone employs more than 98 million people directly i.e. is representing over 3% of all employment. This share of world employment in travel and tourism is greater than any other industries combined, across every region of world. This industry is relatively positive. The job in travel and tourism is forecast to an average of 9% per year over the past years. So, according to world travel and tourism council data: Travel & Tourism generated 100,894,000 jobs directly in 2013 (3.4% of total employment) and this should grow by 2.2% in 2014 to 103,069,000 (3.4% of total employment).

As the earth heats due to global warming caused by pollution, the temperatures are rising and creating a shift in the water environment, slowly damaging the earth. As this continues, more birds are getting stuck in six-pack plastic rings, turtles are getting straws stuck up their nose, and more penguins are getting oil stuck in their feathers. The looks of the atrocious scenes shown above have created a worsening economy for the tourism industry, “polluted rivers are marrying the reputation of our nation's capital, when the rivers are dirty it influences tourists in a negative way.” (Corporate Pollution n.pag.). When the United States has trashy beaches, with a dead whale on shore, and a large pipe dumping sewage into the water greeting tourists, it does not exactly create a wonderful experience, and the United States will surely not expect to see that tourist again. This creates a divot in the tourism industry with an estimated loss of close to one billion dollars through the fall of water-based activities (The Effects: Economy n.pag.). The weakening tourism is not the only factor dragging down the economy in the context of water pollution. Property values, commercial fishing, recreational businesses and other sectors that depend on clean water are also being affected. The prices of houses can drop by twenty-five percent if filthy water is surrounding the property (The Effects: Economy n.pag.). Nutrient pollution annually causes the commercial fishing industry tens of

Despite of the introduction of new security, people still turn away from travel. Those risks and threats had many knock-on effects of the tourism industry and many other industries as the tourists’ attitude to travel changed.

Tourism is the world’s largest and fastest growing industry and can be defined as the totality of the relationship and phenomenon arising from travel and education purposes of people, provided the stay does not imply the establishment of a permanent residence and is not connected with remunerated activity. While it may boost a country’s economy, doubts about the overall benefits of tourism are reinforced by the belief that tourism brings adverse social and cultural effects. As an industry, it may be have several impacts on a country, both good and bad.

The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry