'Incredible India' slips to 68th position in tourism survey

It is not a secret that India is a country of contrasts. In terms of the number of world heritage sites, India ranks 7th in the world. Yet, in the global travel & tourism competitiveness index, it ranks 68th among 139 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum.

‘Incredible India’ slipped six positions in the ranking done every two years. It was 62nd in 2009.

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The survey covers key areas that include policy, environment, safety and security, health and hygiene, prioritisation of travel & tourism, air transport infrastructure, ground transport, tourism infrastructure, information, communication and telecom infrastructure, price competitiveness among others.

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On an average India receives five million international tourists a year while China gets 50 million. China moved up to 39th position from 47th in the survey.

Here are some other takeaways:

• Singapore is the only Asian country among top 10 while 7 European countries dominate the ranking with Switzerland maintaining its top position. The other two in the top 10 are US and Canada.

• Singapore barely has any world heritage sites and is ranked 122. Yet, the island nation receives 7.5 million international visitors.

• In terms of tourism infrastrucutre, India is ranked an ‘incredible’ (oops yet again!) 136th for hotel rooms. That shows how tough the going is for travellers visiting India. Almost all countries have better number of hotel rooms.

• India spent poorly on travel & tourism and ranks 128th in government expenditure while China ranks 55th.

• India is ranked 23rd in the railroad infrastructure and 31st in road density. However, when it comes to quality of roads, India is ranked 90th while in terms of quality of port infrastructure, it is ranked 83rd.

• The only thing the government does efficiently in this space seems to be the timely sharing of monthly or quarterly travel and tourism data. India is ranked 12th in the world. In terms of government priority for the industry, it ranks 80th and for the government expenditure on travel and tourism, the country ranks 128th.

Industry captains, experts have all called on the government to take steps to boost travel and tourism actively. Industry associations like FICCI have made suggestions to the government recently.