| Pub. Date | : Sep, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJED41909 |
| Author Name | :Syed Asghar Mehdi |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Management Journals |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 14 |
The tourism industry is a significant creator of employment opportunities. Tourism as a business encourages various other service sectors like hotels, resorts and guest house services, handicraft business and travel agencies. Travel & Tourism Economic Impact: World (2019) underlines that travel and tourism sector accounts for 10.4% of global GDP and 319 million jobs or 10% of total employment in 2018. As per the World Bank Ranking, China at 2nd position, India at 6th position, and Malaysia at 37th position are the rising nations on the global tourism front in the region. Tourism is the largest service industry in India and is widely used as an instrument of growth of national income, poverty alleviation, infrastructure development and employment generation. The present paper is an in-depth study, analyzing the visitor exports and income generation (GDP) vis-à-vis employment capacity creation by the tourism industry in India, China and Malaysia analyzed over a period of two decades (1995-2015). The findings reveal the usefulness of tourism for India as an instrument to set up the largest contributing parallel tourism economy, facilitating tourism entrepreneurship, leading to business development, especially in rural areas.
Tourism is the largest service industry in India. India witnessed more than 10 million annual foreign tourist arrivals in 2017, an increase of 14% from 8.8 million in 2016 and 1,652 million domestic tourism visits in 2017, with an annual growth rate of 2.3% over 2016 (India Tourism Statistics 2018, p. 3). However, as per the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report (2019), by the World Economic Forum, India has climbed up to the 34th rank from the previous 40th rank overall on the list of the world’s attractive destinations (China ranks 13th globally and Malaysia follows at 29th rank globally). India’s natural resources, ranked at 14th, are vast and diverse and its cultural resources and business travel with a global ranking of 8th include world heritage sites, both natural and cultural.