Travel and tourism has gained a never-before momentum over the last decade. And India, except for some areas to be heeded, has been keeping pace to the money-making and development drive. Initiatives taken up by India through various measures including public-private partnership are much visible now. 2007 witnessed over five million tourists to India and the trend continues in 2008 with 12% growth in foreign traffic and 29% growth in forex earning in the first four months of the year. Setting up of a tourism office in Beijing gave forth a new avenue as far as tour to India is concerned. But, India still has miles to wade through in terms of offering better tourism products and world-class infrastructure. ‘Incredible India’ campaign has been a major success of the past few years. But it doesn’t cause us to be poised enough for our neighbor china boasts of 50 millions foreign visitors and we have the required potential.

The campaign has been triumphant in capturing high-end tourists spending more time in India. And even though countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore have larger number of tourists arrivals, the foreign exchange earned per foreign tourist of India is much higher - which is $1,920 compare to Indonesia ($905), Singapore ($835) and Malaysia ($520). This is because India is able to provide quality products, better service and improved infrastructure. Ambika Soni, Minister of Tourism and Culture in a recent interview highlighted many areas that are being taken care of for us to be hopeful of India’s economic growth. The minister said Medical Tourism has got a boost and over one lakh fifty thousand patients arrived in India in 2004 from across the globe for medical treatment. E-commerce platform has been put on the portal of Incredible India. This service has got many online companies like yatra.com, makemytrip.com, etc. together thus enabling the customers to avail competitive price.

In an effort to put India on the global tourism map, we have witnessed BBC and CNN to have produced number of TV commercials for ‘Incredible India’ campaign both in domestic and international markets. This time around, the world MICE market is estimated to be around $280 billion of which Asia’s share is $30 billion. Initiatives are also being taken to develop 127 rural sites into tourist destination to flaunt their local culture, heritage, cuisine and art. This is how things have started to take off.

Herein lies the rub. As of now, efforts being taken are more of branding exercises than working for the ground realities. Unless India makes it to offer quality tourism products and world-class infrastructure, branding exercise alone can’t turn up returns. In a country like India, tourism is largely a regional phenomenon, while some areas are flourishing with activities; some are unexplored yet even as they have potential. Tourists still gather at the conventional sites of some prominent cities of India like Delhi, Agra, Mumbai, etc. Given the range of diversity; and heritage pool, we could have adopted measures to disburse foreign tourists to each corner of the country.

Our land is already a tourists-savvy one. All we need is a strategy involving public and private participation. There is acute shortage of hotels and manpower to deal with escalating number of tourists. Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in many cities is still inadequate. France has little to flaunt in terms of cuisine, geography and culture; and a country six times smaller than India, can attract 20 times number of tourist that India did.

India is insecure. The cases of tourist murder are being reported every month, the tragic murder of scarlet recently has added to the woes of foreigners. Foreigners are fleeced everywhere. Many hotspots in India are connected unacceptably. It is high time for India to embark on a mission to develop the unexplored sites across India, connect them properly; increase the number of hotels; provide infrastructure; offer security to foreigners and finally to wake up Indians to work jointly to make our country the best travel getaway of the world. Mere branding efforts wouldn’t work.