Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman underlined the potential of tourism to boost jobs and opportunities for the youth on Wednesday in her budget speech.
“There is great potential of tourism, domestic and international to promote job opportunities, especially for the youth. Promotion of tourism will be done in mission mode”, Sitharaman said.
“50 tourist destinations will be selected through challenge mode to be developed as a whole package for domestic and international tourism”, Nirmala Sitharaman added.
She added that states will be encouraged to set up a unity mall in their capital city.
“States will be encouraged to set a ‘unity mall’ in state capital or the most popular tourist destination in the state for the promotion and sale of ‘One District, One product’ and GI products and other handicraft”, she said.
Domestic tourist visitors fell from 2.32 billion across the country in 2019, to 677 million in 2021, as the Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted the tourism industry in the country, the ministry informed Rajya Sabha in December.
The number of domestic tourist visas in 2020, meanwhile, was 610 million. Even foreign tourist visits saw a massive dip, from 31 million in 2019, to 7.1 million in 2020 and a little over a million in 2021.
“Ministry of Tourism, Government of India does not maintain data on revenue generated from tourism sector. However, the Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) through tourism in India for the years 2019 to 2021 is ₹2,11,661cr in 2019, ₹50,136cr in 2020 and ₹65,070cr in 2021,” the ministry had informed the Upper House.
