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Tourism mega job giver, beats many other sectors

The sector's contribution to GDP, employment has been growing up since 2015.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Economic Impact 2017 India, a global study conducted by World Travel and Tourism Council, has revealed that in terms of direct GDP, the travel and tourism sector is more than four times the size of the automobile manufacturing industry in the country. Also, the tourism sector's total GDP impact is larger than that of the chemicals, banking and mining sectors. Travel and Tourism in the country directly employs more people than every sector except for the construction, retail and agriculture sectors. More significantly, Tourism sector supports more than six times as many jobs as the financial services sector and nearly twelve times as many jobs as the mining sector.

The sector's contribution to GDP and employment in the country, which had fallen to sub-three per cent in 2010 to coincide with the global recession, began demonstrating a steady upward growth since 2015. Its contribution to total employment in the country has begun to grow since 2014 after taking a hit in the post-recession period. The percentage of tourism jobs in the country's total employment saw a dramatic fall since 2008 when it was at its peak at 6.6 per cent. For the last three years it has been stagnant at 5.8 per cent.

The Tourism sector generated 25,394,500 jobs directly in 2016 (5.8 per cent of total employment) and this is forecast to grow by 2.1 per cent in 2017 to 25,925,500 (5.8 per cent of total employment). This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services. It also includes, for example, the activities of the restaurant and leisure industries directly supported by tourists. It also includes, for example, the activities of the restaurant and leisure industries directly supported by tourists.

The direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP in 2016 was Rs 4.8 lakh crore (3.3 per cent of GDP). This is forecast to rise by 6.9 per cent to Rs 5.14 lakh crore in 2017. This primarily reflects the economic activity generated by industries such as hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services (excluding commuter services). But it also includes, for example, the activities of the restaurant and leisure industries directly supported by tourists. The direct contribution of the sector to GDP is expected to grow by 6.8 per cent to ' 9.95 lakh crore (3.5 per cent of GDP) by 2027. Leisure travel spending (inbound and domestic) generated 94.6 per cent of direct Travel & Tourism GDP in 2016 (' 12.07 lakh crore) compared with 5.4 per cent for business travel spending ('68,900 crore).

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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