The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) yesterday said tourism earnings could go up to $5 billion by 2003, from the $2.9 billion recorded in calendar year 1999, if a more coordinated and homogenous tourism policy was adopted.
Ficci has made several suggestions to make the tourism sector more vibrant. Among these, Ficci says that tourism should be made a concurrent subject. Its present position as a state subject, according to the chamber, prevents the Centre from having a coordinated and homogenous policy for the sector.
According to a Ficci statement, "Different state governments pursue their own policies, sometimes, even leading to unhealthy competition in attracting foreign travellers."
By placing tourism on the concurrent list, the Centre will be able to legislate and enhance the outlay for tourism development.
"The coordination will also be improved with other related ministries like aviation, surface transport and railways.
This would help in having a pan-India approach to tourism and in the balanced development of tourist destinations in the country," a Ficci paper says.
The chamber also suggested that a close watch on the inflow of foreign tourists should be maintained to evolve a pragmatic and integrated policy for development. Statistics reveal that most of the foreign tourists visiting India are mostly from the UK, US, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, France, Japan, Germany and Canada.
Ficci has welcomed the steps taken by the civil aviation ministry to increase the total number of airline seats by almost 10,000 per week through bilateral air traffic agreements with 10 countries.
The chamber said such decisions should be based on considerations like the existing air traffic between the two destinations and the potential for increasing the number of seats.
