Q.Discuss the importance of tourism as an emerging service business in India.

Tourism's value to India goes well beyond leisure travel, touching foreign-exchange earnings, employment and cultural preservation alike.

Tourism is the activity of travelling to and staying in places away from one's usual residence, for leisure, business, pilgrimage or medical purposes. As a service business it is, in effect, a chain of interlinked services — transportation, accommodation, food and beverages, travel-agency and tour-operator services, guides, and entertainment — that together create the visitor's overall experience. It is classified into domestic tourism and international/inbound tourism, and, by purpose, into leisure, business/MICE, pilgrimage, medical and eco-tourism.

Tourism's importance to India rests on several grounds: (i) it is a significant earner of foreign exchange from inbound international visitors; (ii) it generates large-scale employment, directly in hotels, travel agencies, tour operations and guiding, and indirectly in handicrafts, local transport and retail; (iii) it helps preserve and promote India's cultural heritage, monuments and traditions by giving them continuing economic value; and (iv) states such as Tamil Nadu — with its temple towns, hill stations and coastal destinations — draw very large volumes of domestic tourists, making tourism an important contributor to state-level economic activity as well as the national economy. T …

Discussing tourism only as a leisure activity and omitting its economic dimensions — foreign exchange, employment and heritage-value crea …