 "'Incredible India' spends need to go up, says World Travel & Tourism Council president & CEO")
London-headquartered World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), a research and advocacy body for private industry, takes issues facing the sector to governments across the globe. In the last four years, the Council representatives have met 84 presidents/prime ministers. Its President and CEO David Scowsill talks about the Indian tourism sector, the gaps it faces and the opportunities it can create. Excerpts of an interaction with Ajay Modi.
The WTTC has been interacting with lot of governments in Asia recently. Why this increase in interest?
Yes. We have been to Japan, Thailand, China, Egypt, India and Singapore in last two months. This is because things are happening mainly in this part of the world. The epicentre of travel and tourism is moving out of Europe and North America to South East Asia. The Chinese government has been focussed on tourism as a key pillar of economy. They have always built infra ahead of the demand. Outbound and domestic travel is on a boom there. But it is not just China. Countries like Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos all coming from a very low base but growing very fast. Some countries have the right infrastructure to take the growth forward and some are behind in investment.
How do you view the work done by India to improve the travel tourism infrastructure?
Infrastructure issues for India have always been problematic, both for domestic and the inbound tourism. In the recent years, some of the airport infrastructure has been improved dramatically. But it still has a lot further to go in terms of the airport infrastructure. It is the same in the hotel industry. With more and more people travelling for business and leisure, move investment in required in hotels and road network. In my view, India still has to focus on infrastructure building. The capital spend over the next 10-15 years has to be very big to encourage tourism.
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What are the key challenges India faces in growing international inbound tourism?
Infrastructure is clearly one of the challenges. Second was the visa issue. India has introduced electronic visa processing and it will drive the inbound market. The third issue is the marketing programme of ‘Incredible India’. The programme is great but it needs a much bigger spend to cut through against competing nations. In US, more than half of visa fee collected goes on marketing under the Brand USA. Earlier, every state used to do independent marketing. You need an umbrella so that whole of India gets the advantage.
What kind of concerns do the countries you visited have on this sector?
There are long term concerns around climate change. There is also a challenge on people management as lot of people visit historical monuments like Taj Mahal every day. This needs to be managed better to ensuring it is preserved for the future. Countries also want to better manage disruptions like natural disaster or terrorism attack or a disease. Disruption is something the travel industry is getting used to. They know that something is doing to happen every year. We are getting better at dealing with it.
How has India’s perception changed globally as a destination?
India has seen a progress but the perception is changing too slowly. There has been some great investment in infrastructure but infrastructure is not just airports, hotels and road. It also includes telecom network, banks, healthcare, etc. I have seen India for last 30 years. It is still playing catch up with some of the other countries in Asia. I am positive now as I can see things getting in place.
What about safety issues, especially for female travellers since India is a large country with several states and there is lack of coordination at different levels?
Individual states must be on board to address safety issues. There must be a coordinated activity from the centre and the states for safety and security. Thailand is much more dependent on tourism than India. They have a focussed tourism police and civilian police and there is coordination between states. State coordinated approach will be a key. Safety of women is not any worse now than in the past. Due to social media, news today spreads faster. You can’t bury these incidents. You have to demonstrate what is being done on these.
How is the global travel industry expected to grow this year?
This year, the global travel industry is expected to grow at 3.1% against global GDP growth of 2.2%. So, we are still growing faster than the economy and this is despite all the disruptions we have had this year, including terrorism incidents. So, we are a robust industry.
