Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access

Tourism

Tourism has emerged as one of the key enablers of growth worldwide. The sector significantly contributes towards socio-economic progress through employment generation, foreign exchange earnings and infrastructure development. In 2018, the sector continued its upward growth trend and outperformed the global economic growth. While the global economy grew at 3.2% in 2018, travel & tourism witnessed a growth of 3.9% - higher than sectors such as construction, retail & wholesale, and healthcare. The contribution of tourism to global GDP was USD 2.75 trillion, accounting for 10.4% of the global GDP. One in five of all new jobs created across the world during the last 5 years have been in tourism with nearly 319 million people working directly or indirectly in the sector. India has emerged as tourism powerhouse over the recent years and is the 8th largest country in terms of contribution to travel & tourism GDP. In 2018, the sector generated USD 247.3 billion and was the source of livelihood generation for 42.7 million people. Foreign Tourist Arrivals crossed the 10 million milestone in 2017 and the growth trend is expected to continue over the coming years. However, consumption by domestic tourists remains the key strength of the sector in India, much stronger than the global average. The segment is expected to grow further with growing disposable income, increasing inclination towards traveling across age groups and emergence of new destinations as well as new themes of tourism. India also follows the global trend in terms of higher spending on leisure tourism as compared to business spending.