TravTalk India Online Magazine
India’s tourism story looks bright — surging domestic trips, thriving business travel, and high hotel occupancies. However, leisure inbound is sliding, cautions Suman Billa.
Janice Alyosius
Suman Billa, Additional Secretary and Director General, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, highlighted the realities facing Indian tourism at a recent event. Yes, India’s tourism is on a robust growth path, but cracks are showing, particularly in leisure inbound.
Inbound vs outbound
India receives about 20 million inbound tourists, but once diaspora and non-leisure segments are excluded, leisure tourism shrinks to just 6–6.5 million. That is a sobering figure for a country of India’s size. Meanwhile, outbound tourism tells a different story. India sends out 27–28 million travellers annually, spending nearly as much overseas as inbound generates for the country. “On the one hand, through our inbound, we earn about `3 lakh crore in foreign exchange. On the other hand, outbound is rising faster than inbound — and that should be a source of great worry,” said Billa.
The supply crunch
The root of the problem? Demand is outstripping supply. India has just 1.8 lakh (0.18 million) branded hotel rooms and 15 lakh (1.5 million) unbranded rooms. “When a leisure traveller looks at several options, India is just one of them. That means the experience, pricing, and infrastructure must be great,” Billa admitted. Domestic travel, by contrast, is booming. Visits jumped from 2.5 billion to nearly 3 billion.
“Government and industry do not sit on opposite sides of the table. All of us have one function, one purpose — to converge our forces and make tourism deliver for India in the best way it can,” he concluded.
