08/10/2021 - Society

KEY POINTS

·        The global travel and tourism industry is considered to be the most adversely affected, owing to the strict lockdowns, interrupted air travel, closed down hotels and other such travel restrictions imposed to prevent spread of the pandemic.

·        Almost 27 million Indians travelled abroad in 2019 prior to Covid, spending over $20 billion.

·        The ultimate responsibility to promote domestic tourism  through increased coordination and cooperation, and formulation of mutually beneficial policies and strategies  lies with the States.

·        Maharashtra’s initiative to promote homestay tourism in partnership with Airbnb, aimed at encouraging travel to lesser-known destinations and enabling inclusive community-led tourism, is another welcome move.

·        It is crucial for curbing the impact of the prevalent over-tourism challenge. Unchecked tourism can deplete natural resources causing water shortages, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and contribute to climate change and pollution.

·        Hence, regular carrying capacity assessment of popular destinations and sustainable management is imperative.

·        Initiatives such as Virtual Reality, webinars, digital walk-throughs offering an immersive experience of popular as well as unexplored destinations, via initiatives like ‘Dekho Apna Desh’, need to be further promoted.

·        Therefore, it is essential that we leverage this into rethinking business models for the future while also prioritising the preservation of our heritage and ecology through sustainable and responsible tourism.

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The approaches for the revival of tourism in India in fostering Inclusive Growth :

The Tourism Industry plays a vital role in the economic development of the Nation State. I the post covid era there is a necessity and need to get the country back into toes in the Tourism development. The key approaches that India needs to take in the tourism sector are listed below:

 Indian Domestic tourism markets play a vital role towards inclusive economic growth, it can be achieved through opening gates for " the tourist who are interested in adventure sport " - The Ministry of Tourism should exercise a new regulatory mechanism for the promotion and development of Indian domestic tourism - such as. providing the citizens an opportunity to travel to unexplored destinations within the country, which is aimed at domestic tourism development.  The North East region must be given special emphasis on the unexplored tourist spot in the country. 

 Some of the major initiatives are taken up within the State Governments such as Kerala and Maharashtra such as - providing vaccination drives in Kerala. Maharashtra introduced an important  Scheme of providing a home stay facility via Airbnb to promote the domestic tourism sector.  

Center and State should plan, coordinate and cooperate towards the formulation of the policies with respect to making the domestic travel among the citizens a "New Normal " in the post-pandemic world.

The focus should be on sustainable and eco-tourism development in the digitization and virtual world that we have adapted and adopted due to Covid 19.   The government should promote and engage in schemes such as Dekho Apna Desh and the Government should economically engage in promoting and marketing the locally produced products in the tribal area in order to earn greater economic revenue with the help of the tourism industry. 

Thus the main aim of inclusive growth - is the sustainable development of the tourism industry along with the greater collaboration and partnership with the Government and private sector - through the means of public-private partnership initiative . This will help in robust development and growth in our tourism industry and the economy at large.