Let’s make India better!

How many cuisines do we really have?

India has immense potential for tourism. With all the disagreements and debates on the actual number, number of tourists in 2006 were approximately 4 million. The earnings from tourism is quoted as 5 billion USD. I am not sure if government includes business travelers in this number as well. I hope not!

It is also estimated that 60% of the tourism comes from North India. Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, UP(Agra) and Himachal Pradesh being one of the top states from North and Goa being the prominent one among all the states. There is so much untapped tourism market out there. North East, Southern India (Kerala being one exception), Lakshwadeep, Andman Nicobar and many more. They need some serious marketing and uplifting to become attactive tourism places. Tourism can be a real good boost to the economy and can feeed so many families. Government did increase the advertising budget to 65 crore ruppes. Is it good enough? Not sure. But we have started to seeing its effect. Below is the advertisement created by Madhya Pradesh (MP) Tourism Government. It is very interesting and fun to look at for sure!

In order to boost tourism, just the marketing is not enough. More number of airports need to be developed, more hotels need to be built and a better services industry need to emerge. According to the report at India Tourism site, Tamilnadu has the highest number of travel operators and agencies! I am very sure the number needs to grow by manyfold to grow the tourism pie. If the government provides the right infrastructure, the market economy will automatically create these travel operators and agencies.