According to the India Tourism Statistics report 2022, released by the government, the total number of Foreign Tourist Arrivals in 2021 stood at 1.52 million, which is a decline of 44.5 per cent over 2020. Though this is not a surprise considering that the year 2021 was a year of uneven growth, it also opens up the possibility of better growth in the second half of 2022-23.
What has cushioned the tourism industry is the resilience and growth of the domestic tourism industry. The sector witnessed a growth of 11.05 per cent over 2020, which was about 677.63 million visits in 2021. India is a huge tourism market both from domestic and outbound perspectives. With international flights out of reach for many Indians due to Covid-19 restrictions and curtailment of flights, Indians rediscovered the charm of domestic destinations. Many hotels and resorts that primarily catered to inbound tourists opened their doors wholeheartedly to Indian domestic tourists who turned out to be their mainstay in 2021 and the early part of 2022. This trend is expected to continue.
In the recent past, all the large hotel chains have announced expansion plans and have targeted the lucrative domestic sector and beefed up their teams to cater to this segment.
However, the inbound tour operators, especially the small and medium ones are not as enthused about inbound numbers as they feel that the government has not promoted the destination adequately amongst foreign tourists, especially in our source markets.
Destinations such as Egypt, Turkey, South America and many European countries are attracting a large number of tourists, and this is due to their marketing and branding efforts. This is missing from the Indian side as there have not been any campaigns to attract tourists. They believe that a more focused approach from the government would have led to more inquiries and bookings.
In some good news, the Mormugao Port Authority has said that they are expecting 56 port calls including 21 cruise liners to dock in Goa from October this year and coupled with a rise in charters, the state is expected to kick start its tourist season this year.
It should be noted here that globally tourism has picked up quite sharply and countries are focusing their attention on international tourists as they bring in valuable foreign exchange. Similarly, though India is cushioned by domestic tourists it is imperative that we also attract a whole lot of international tourists as this diversifies our source markets. Europe, including UK, continues to be our primary source market and we should not lose sight of it. We should reopen e-visas for UK and Canada as this would provide tourists with easy accessibility.
We should double down on our efforts to attract more international tourists and this will benefit all the stakeholders in the tourism industry and not a few large hotel chains. One should remember that in 2020, it supported a total of 80 million jobs in India and this needs protection.
