For the last two years, tourism the world over has been closed to inbound tourism, except for a few small nations such as UAE, Sri Lanka, Maldives etc. India is no exception and this has taken its toll on the tourism economy.
The DefExpo 2022 scheduled to be held in Gandhinagar has been postponed as the government cited the Russia-Ukraine war as the reason. It may be but it points to a larger picture of the Indian hospitality industry losing out due to such postponement.
So, let’s put a perspective to this thinking. In 2019, which was a normal year for tourism arrivals, India received over 10.9 million foreign tourists as per the Govt. of India statistics. On average, foreign tourists spend seven nights in India and this means at least fifty million room nights that was consumed in India, at a conservative level, the bulk of thi spending is in star-rated hotels in India.
Second, foreign tourists are bigger spenders in tourist destinations and they consume services of local guides, dine in the hotels and on average pay a higher room rent compared to domestic tourists.
