BY ROBIN GHOSH
(ECONOMIST.)
KOLKATA, 4 AUGUST 2023:
Now that the negative air about Covid -19 pandemic is over – the tourism industry in India is turning around.
More than anything else, India is bubbling with Optimism and confidence.
A free flowing entrepreneurial energy and a flair for absorbing new technology have created a new mindset.
Triggering new and newer areas of investment and projects.
For India, tourism is a very important industry: generates employment across the sector, across rural and urban milieu, – scoops revenue for the state and central government.
Potential for the Indian tourism industry – in the medium and long term – is very attractive.
It is being acknowledged by captains of tourism and allied industry – the rail and airlines, hotels and resorts, transport, food, handicrafts and so on.
Look what is happening?
1. Eye – popping aircraft ordered by India – Air India and Indigo together 970 air crafts.
2. Domestic tourist traffic has clocked 677 millions.
3. New hotels, resorts, and homestays are coming up at an accelerated rate all over the country
So far so good.
If you are probing which sector in the tourism grid has the potential of sustainable
business: the answer is – religious tourism. Period.
Scan the following data:
1 .19 percent of all travel in India – bus – rail – air is religious travel.
2. 50% package tours are religious tours.
A new class of tourists – the silver generation tourists – has sprouted.
Who are those silver generation tourists ?
Here is the identity mark.
1. Over 65, not dependent on their children for any kind of monetary help.
2. They own their own house.
3. Want to make a short trip every 2 months and want to travel in comfort – preferably a religious travel.
Catch the silver generation. How?
1. Create religious tourism .
2. Develop religious tourist circuits .
3. Learn from Indian Railways how to focus on religious travel. And create a special train for passengers willing to visit different religious destinations.
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