What is the size of India´s tourism industry, and what do you make of its potential?
The total inbound tourism to India is about 2.4 million. Maybe this year it will reach 2.5 or 2.6 million. The outbound tourism is about 4.6 million, about double of the inbound. Inbound tourism is very important for India—it generates foreign exchange, a lot of employment, and it is one industry with a minimum requirement in terms of investment..
Whatever a good tourist destination needs, India has. There is no other country in the world which is bigger and better in terms of tourist attraction. India is the greatest show on Planet Earth. It is the birthplace of four great religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism. The Sufism aspect of Islam was introduced here, and the most fascinating Sufi shrines like Ajmer Sharif and Allauddin Chishti are found here. Few other countries can point to a spot where one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, St. Thomas, is buried.
There is no other country in the world which has so much rhythm, music, so much cultural diversity. India is actually a continent of 25 or 26 ´countries´. You can do them in one shot if you have the time, otherwise you have to come again and again. This is why the length of stay of tourists in India is the longest anywhere.
But are these attractions generating the number of tourists they should be?
The tourism volume is not there for some reasons, and the primary reason is air-seat capacity. Ninety-five percent or 98 percent of the people who come to India arrive by air. Now the total air seat capacity of India is around five and a half million—that is, five and a half going and five and a half coming, altogether 11 million seats. That is not enough to take care of tourist and non-tourist traveller to and from India.