Growth and Development of Indian Tourism Industry

The importance of tourism to economic development has been recognized widely due to its contribution to the balance of payments, GDP and employment. Since last few years, Indian tourism industry has been growing at a rapid pace and it has vast potential for generating employment and earning large amount of foreign exchange. So it is imperative to study the growth and development of Indian tourism industry. In the present paper the growth and development of Indian tourism industry has been studied. For this purpose, data has been collected from secondary sources such as Bureau of Immigration, Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India and World Travel and Tourism Council. To analyze the collected data, Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) has been calculated. Results showed that tourism is the largest service industry in India, with a contribution of US$34.008billion to the national GDP and 7.4 percent to the total employment in the year 2011. India witnessed more than 5 million annual foreign tourist arrivals and more than 740 million domestic tourist visits in the year 2011. Moreover, it is suggested that the central and state government should take initiatives to develop tourism in India.