Indian tourism sector to contribute 10% to India's GDP by 2030: Shekhawat

Tourism minister says rising aspirations, infrastructure and policy support will drive India's tourism sector towards 10% GDP share by 2030, in line with global benchmarks

India’s tourism sector should contribute 10 per cent to India’s economy by 2030, in line with global benchmarks, Tourism and Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said on Friday.

 

“India will align with global standards, with 10 per cent of GDP coming from tourism. As our economy grows, parallelly our aspirational class will grow and those people that have emerged from below the poverty line will commonly go for spiritual tourism,” the minister said at the CII Annual Business Summit.

 

“We’re working on this with a vision to grow various aspects, including spiritual and religious tourism, and the government has created policies to enable overall tourist experience,” he said, noting that destinations like Ujjain’s Mahakal corridor have attracted over 1 million visitors in a month.

 

India’s domestic tourists have the potential to become a larger contributor to the country’s tourism sector, which was a shift from earlier trends where there was larger reliance on international or foreign tourists. With a transitional shift post-Covid towards a rise in domestic and international travel, the minister said the Centre had asked states to come up with strategies to promote experiential tourism on its monument sites. “We’ve asked the states to come up with new proposals,” he said. 

 

He also urged the industry to work together with the government to build an end-to-end road map for travellers coming to India and even for domestic tourists, to promote ease of doing travel.

 

The minister asked the industry and corporates to conduct their events and meetings within India so as to encourage MICE or meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions pillar of tourism. He said the government would do its part towards building infrastructure and facilities, besides the policy push required, as it has already done for building the next 50 tourism destinations.

 

“The infrastructure status is going to give a major boost to private investments coming into the sector,” he added.

 

He said Indian tourism would thrive on the back of increasing investments on infrastructure, including roads, railways, and airports, but he noted that the number of flights should rise.