Jean- Claude Baumgarten

It might come as a surprise but it is true that despite a long haul of sluggishness in tourism due to the gulf war and SARS, tourism world over is showing an upward growth. By end of this year, India is expected to total 7.4 per cent real growth as far as travel and tourism is concerned.

World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) recently released its third tourism satellite accounting research. According to the research findings, the country’s tourism industry is expected to generate 2.0 per cent of GDP and 11,093,100 jobs. The tourism and travel economy is expected to total 4.8 per cent of GDP and 23,839,800 jobs. The report was released by WTTC’s president Jean- Claude Baumgarten in New Delhi. According to the findings of the report for the year 2003, there has been 7.9 per cent real growth in the current year in the segment of personal travel, whilst business travel has witnessed a real growth of 0.7 per cent. With respect to the government’s expenditure on the sector, the report has shown a growth of 3.8 per cent. There has been a 6.8 per cent real growth as far as capital investments are concerned. In terms of visitor exports, the real growth has been 8.2 per cent. However, the real growth in the travel and tourism industry’s GDP is 6.1 per cent.

It is also for the first time that WTTC brought out its first regional report for any Indian state. The council collaborated with the government of Kerala to produce the tourism satellite account (TSA). According to Baumgarten “The report views the current performance of the state’s travel and tourism industry and provides forecasts based on most recent national and international data fed into econometric models developed by WTTC’s research partner, Oxford Economics forecasting.” The report also points out that the demand growth in Kerala is the highest in the world and is projected to increase by 11.4 per cent per annum over the coming decade.