India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant addressed the hospitality and tourism industry on Monday and urged them to highlight the employment-generating potential of the sector to the politicians to help push for better infrastructure and status for the industry.
Addressing the 6th Hoteliers Conclave organised by the Hotel Association of India (HAI) in New Delhi, Kant called on the industry to ensure that the politicians are aware that 25 million jobs can be generated by the hospitality and tourism industry by 2030, reported PTI.
“Somehow the tourism industry has failed to tell the politicians that it is a big creator of jobs, while agreeing with their demand for industry status. If you look at tourism, I think from a perspective of a political lens, the politician only understands one thing and that is how many jobs is the tourism sector creating. Tourism has a huge multiplier impact for every direct job that you create, you create seven indirect jobs, but I think somehow the tourism industry has failed to tell the politicians that we are a big creator of jobs,” said Kant.
Kant suggested focusing on developing five key states as tourism hubs and leveraging private sector expertise to unlock the country’s potential in this multi-billion dollar market, particularly in the MICE (meeting, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) segment where India currently has a minimal share.
“About eleven states have given tourism an industry status, but many have not extended the benefits. We need to really work hard and really push state governments to do this. The Centre also needs to make it an industry as it is a job creator industry. Somewhere the industry has failed to tell this story. Thailand has created close to 20 million tourism related jobs, while Malaysia has created 15 million. India too has created seven million jobs,” he added.
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