Outbound Travel And Tourism – An Opportunity Untapped:
A report was released titled ‘Outbound Travel and Tourism – An Opportunity Untapped’, which shows India’s outbound tourism will surpass USD 42 billion by 2024.
- Outbound tourism is the act of travelling ‘out’ of the home country for the purposes of tourism.
Findings of the Report:
- The Indian outbound travel market is among the fastest growing markets globally with approximately 80 million passport levels of purchasing power, especially among the middle class.
- With a growing economy, young population, and growing middle class, India is ideally positioned to become one of the most lucrative outbound tourism markets in the world.
- Europe sees 20% of the travellers from India’s outbound traffic. 10 % travel to Australia and New Zealand, while the rest of the traffic is towards Southeast Asia.
- In 2021, Indians spent approximately USD 12.6 billion in outbound trips, compared to USD 22.9 billion in 2019.
- While the reason for decrease in spending could be due to the pandemic, these figures point out the huge value that can be captured from Indian outbound travellers.
- India’s Tourism is ranked at 10th position in terms of its contribution to World GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the World Travel and Tourism Council’s report in 2019.
- During 2019, contribution of travel & tourism to GDP was 6.8% of the total economy, Rs. 13,68,100 crore (USD 194.30 billion).
- India as of now in 2021 has 40 sites listed under ‘World Heritage List’, 6th highest (32 cultural, 7 natural and 1 mixed site) in the world.
- Dholavira and Ramappa Temple (Telangana) are the latest ones.
- In FY20, the tourism sector in India accounted for 39 million jobs, which was 8.0 % of the total employment in the country. By 2029, it is expected to account for about 53 million jobs.
