Make tourism part of central plan, says CII

On the second day of the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII's) fifth international conference "India: Tourism & Heritage", the human resource development group underscored the fact that close to 80 per cent of the people earning their living from tourism could be classified as part of the unorganised sector. That is where HR training is needed most.

The group also felt that issues of neglected or vandalised monuments and clean cities were essentially HR problems. The group's recommendations included awareness campaigns, and including tourism in the curriculum of schools and colleges.

The group believes there is a huge gap between "Brand India" and "Experience India". The brand raises expectations, which the actual experience may be frustrating.

It recommended a committee be set up under the chief minister of each state, involving professionals from the field, to oversee the creation of infrastructure.

Similarly, a professionally managed tourism board should come up. Special tourism economic zones should be created, where land should allotted to private promoters to build hotels in various categories, convention centres, shopping complexes for handicrafts, tourism offices, and the like. R&D committees should be set up to develop new tourism products.

The group on fiscal reforms felt Centre-state co-ordination was still a far cry. Inter-departmental and intra-departmental co-ordination in the states should be built up. And the problem has less to do with co-ordination, more with implementation.

The problem of raising taxes was brought up, and the group felt if maximising revenue was the aim, better systems could succeed, instead of raising taxes. The luxury tax, transportation taxes, and excise--all need to be rationalised.

The group felt tourism should be discussed at the National Development Council and a Tourism Act must be enacted. Regarding domestic tourism, the group noted this was an enormous market. If the Indian Railways carries 54,200 lakh passengers every year and 10 per cent of them as tourists, the number comes to 5,420 lakh tourists per annum.