Jaitley’s Budget To Put Tourism On A Growth Trajectory

When Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the budget, there were some key areas that were being looked forward to as potential growth indicators. These areas are not organised sectors, yet generate enough job opportunities and open a world of cultural exchange - one being infrastructure development with foreign collaboration, and another one, undoubtedly is tourism.

Tourism, though being one of the biggest grosser for the country generating foreign exchange and revenues at different levels, has also been a sector that hasn’t received much impetus. Although the UPA government showed some signs of helping the tourism industry grow by marginally hiking the budget for the industry in 2013, things didn’t move as expected. In 2013 budget, UPA gave nearly Rs 1,200 crore to the tourism industry, upping the ante of ‘budget share’ only by an additional Rs 88 crore as compared to the year before.

Despite this, the sector generated revenue of Rs 63,160 crore and created 40 million jobs. The total number of inbound tourists had grown by 16% till last year, and this growth is expected to stabilise at 12% in the next decade or so. The tourism sector, though private to a large extent, is among the most equal opportunity employers and contributed nearly 7% to India’s GDP last year.

What ails the tourism sector is the absence of a consolidated vision and a comprehensive, yet integrated effort to make things better. Be it in terms of preservation of monuments, documenting the history to aid studies by scholars, identifying potential growth areas, improving connectivity or ensuring the security of travellers, India needs to get into the role of multitasking to harness the potential of tourism sector.

The hopes have gone up this year with the BJP-led government breathing life into the tourism sector by setting aside Rs 1,000 crore. Although the amount seems trifle less compared to the allocation made by UPA the previous year; the focus seems to have sharpened in 2014 with a single-party government.

In its maiden union budget, the NDA government set forth an ambitious and directional budget for the growth of tourism industry. E-visa facilities at nine key airports, building airports in smaller cities, theme-based tourist circuits in the offing are expected to add more robust growth direction to the ‘Incredible India’ tag that the tourism department has been building.

The direction for growth of tourism is two pronged. While providing the much-needed impetus to create facilities for international tourists, the government will also spend a considerable amount of allocated funds to make the inbound tourism more robust.

The government has set aside Rs 200 crore for the preservation of archaeological sites and Rs 100 crore for the development of heritage sites. Now, what needs to be seen is whether this will be a pan-India approach or will be limited to the popular sites that have been generating huge revenue in the Northern part of the country.

However, what is imperative at this juncture is to understand the direction the country would be taking in showcasing itself as a land of heritage, history and culture, along with promising value for money and safe travel for tourists from both within and outside the country.

The maiden budget has evoked hopes in the spirit of tourism industry, which has lauded the budget, calling it ‘futuristic.’ Theme-based tourism circuits are experiments that need feasibility study and again, the government’s credentials would be facing litmus test on how secular this overall planning can be.

Apart from the region and faith specific growth, Indian tourism will also have to work on promoting the ‘safe India’ image that has taken a severe beating in the wake of sexual assaults on women. This has gained India a discredit in the international circuit. The tourism industry will have to ensure this image is improved both in messaging and spirit for the government’s direction to turn in a positive manner.