Domestic Tourism: The New Mantra For Travel Agents

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

The Indian tourism industry has been expressing much concern over the five million Indian outbound tourists that are amounting to a revenue outflow of about Rs 25000 crore annually. In an endeavour to divert some of this revenue toward domestic tourism, the industry is all geared up to develop this segment further to give it a much needed thrust. Tour operators have awakened to the fact that domestic tourism is the foundation of strong tourist inflow. With an intent to focus on inter-regional tourism promotion and to boost the potent domestic tourism segment, Indian travel agents and tour operators have for the first time joined hands to aggressively tap this lucrative sector.

Until a few years back, India’s domestic tourism was limited to only pilgrim tours. However, today the movement of the domestic market has increased tremendously. This is evident from the fact that even time-share, which till recently was one of the most infamous segments of the industry is now gaining popularity as an easy vacation option.

To attract customers, travel agents are now exploring new territories and are sprucing up their itineraries and products. According to the latest travel surveys, there has been a phenomenal rise of ten per cent annual growth in the domestic tourism segment. The explosion of domestic tourism is an inevitable by-product of economic development in the country. As there is an increase of disposable income, the demand for travel has grown exponentially, diverting most of the traffic toward the outbound segment., putting domestic tourism on the back burner. Where as Indian tourism has been equated with foreign visitors alone or the inbound tourism segment which has been sluggish over the last few years. It is time that India starts equating domestic tourists at par with the foreign tourists to boost its domestic tourism. As an agent puts it, "Once our domestic tourist is content in spending his money and holidays within the country, foreign tourists will naturally follow suit."

According to Mukesh Jagga, director, Vivan Holidays and general secretary, Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI), "Inter-regional tourism will play a significant role in national integration and economic upliftment of various states. Therefore, we must lay a concerted emphasis on domestic tourism promotion."

A Late Start

Despite having every right ingredient in the making of a unique destination, why is it that Indian tourism as a whole did not witness a meteoric rise like Malaysia or other South East Asian destinations? Ask experts and pat comes the reply. Veterans believe that Indian tourism (domestic) has no foundation and lacks projection and awareness. In addition, whenever India has tried to pep up the scenario, several uncalled for events like 9/11, attacks on the parliament and other natural calamities have become major deterrents in the movement of travellers internationally. Weighing the socio-political scenario globally and its adverse impacts on the international movement of both the business and leisure traffic it is only natural that all tour operators have turned focus on domestic tourism, which is both a profitable and feasible proposition in the given scenario.

Tour operators are now diverting outbound tourists by enticing them with attractive domestic packages. The industry is now working with various airlines and state tourism departments to work out incentives for the domestic travellers.

Bottlenecks

To promote domestic tourism, the biggest hurdle has been the inadequate infrastructure. Now that the Ministry of Tourism, under the dynamic leadership of Jagmohan is becoming aggressive as far as infrastructure development is concerned, development of the tourism circuits is has received a big impetus by the same. In a recent move, clearing the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports will further enhance the tourism scenario. While infrastructure development is a continuous process, many agents believe that it is not a burning issue. Tourism experts observe that infrastructure development will take place automatically once there is aggressive movement of tourists.

Strengths

To strengthen the country’s tourism, the geographical diversity can be fruitfully marketed nationally and internationally. This exercise has a lot of significance even regionally. For people in the South, Snow holidays and Himalayas are new attractions and similarly, the beaches and temples of the South can be promoted to the people of North. These products are to be co-ordinated to compete with the attractive packages available for the outbound tourists. Moreover, domestic tourist movement is not limited by seasons, but each season has its own unique selling proposition (USP). As agents are already gearing up to encash on domestic tourism with incentives galore, ADTOI, has already approached Indian Airlines and Air Sahara for promoting tourist destinations by jointly floating packages within the country. The association is also planning to approach Jet airways and Air-India soon. It is trying to work out a ‘travel pass’ for the tourists to various viable routes and circuits. The travel pass will allow tourists some relaxation in terms of discounted fares. It is working with various agencies to find out measures to encourage domestic travel.

"We are concerned that a huge number of tourists amounting to about five million annually go out of the country for holidays, resulting in a huge cash out flow. Therefore, to diminish this adverse impact on domestic tourism, we are trying to promote this segment very aggressively. We are co-ordinating with states and airlines to work out reasonable packages to offer a fillip to the domestic sector. With respect to the state tourism departments, the association has already initiated talks with Jammu and Kashmir, Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram. These destinations have lot of potential and are opening doors to the domestic tourists in order to curtail the outbound traffic. Therefore, we are emphasising on the cost-effective packages conducive for growth. We plan to market these packages under the slogan `See us now’. Many states have already agreed to work out competitive packages which are being configured currently," informed, Jyoti Kapur, President, ADTOI.

Leave Travel Concession

Initiatives like re-introduction of Leave Travel Concession (LTC) are much required to boost domestic tourism. The government’s decision to restore the LTC facility to its employees with the hope that the consequential additional outgoing from the exchequer on this account, will at least benefit the tourism industry, has been a welcome decision. Two years ago, the ban on LTC came as a serious blow to the domestic travel agents (since ticket bookings for the employees for the leisure travel generated a good business), depriving them from booking travel tickets for government employees willing to go for leisure tours. Tourism Analysts predict that LTC segment will grow by 25 per cent this year. Says Subhash Goyal, President, Confederation of Indian Industries, "The move will not only benefit the consumer, it will also benefit the tour operators. Post September 11, we have been recommending LTC revival very strongly." Most of the government employees avail travel concession as per their ranks and book tickets accordingly in different classes in train or flight and resultantly contribute a good lot to a tour operators business. LTC has been termed as a good tool to offer a fillip to the leisure travel. Ram Kohli, Chairman Creative Travel Pvt Ltd says that, "We require immediate initiatives like LTC, to give boost to the domestic tourism as it fills hotels, airlines and rails too. So the travel is bound to increase." The withdrawal of LTC for last two years was counted as an obstacle to the growth of the domestic tourism and was criticised by prominent tour operators. The government employees with the allowance as a disposable income would now be prominent travellers.

Future course of action In order to create adequate awareness, tourism practitioners point out that media can create the desired hype amongst the populace. Besides, state tourism offices should carry out extensive marketing campaigns jointly with the help of media, tour operators and travel agents, finance companies, hotels and airlines by offering attractive holiday packages to lure the consumers. Due to the lack of publicity, public is unaware of the destinations within the State and outside which are worth seeing and comes under one’s budget to spend holidays. States should organise inter-state Travel Marts/Exhibitions to expose the tourism potential in their areas. Development of integrated tourist circuits as envisaged in the National Tourism Policy need to be aggressively promoted by the travel trade. This will enable the tourist to visit more than one destination at a given time while planning holidays. Indian Railways can play a major role in this regard by developing special holiday packages for domestic tourists.

Role of ADTOI

The aim of the national body of domestic tour operators is to strengthen the base of tourism in the country and to facilitate Indian tourists to travel length and breadth of the country. "Our main objective is to provide professional service to the Indian tourist and implement a code of conduct and standard contracts for the tourism Industry in the country," says Jagga.