Spirits are low, Tourism Industry growth rate falls to 5%

SPIRITS ARE DOWN: Not only is leisure travel from the US down, but business travel too has seen a small fall.

Other stories in the section:

Far away from the crowds, at a spa in the hills

CNN-IBN correspondent Varun Kumar comes back from Mussoorie rejuvenated.

• No time for long vacations, try "flexi" holidays

• Monsoon magic: Jog Falls, nature lovers' delight

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Tale of Two Azmis

Featured Slideshows

Related Headlines

powered by

• There's no room for tourists in Kerala
• Services sector shows great momentum
• India incredibly slow in tourist growth

Keywords: Growth Rate, Hotels

Mumbai: The tourism industry has shown signs of a slow down in the last two months.

Empty counters have been a rare sight at the travel agencies in the last three years. Tourism has been growing at about 30 per cent annually. However in the last two months, the growth rate has fallen to just 5 per cent.

In fact traffic into the country has seen a small dip of 2-3 per cent most of which is because of fewer people traveling into India from the US. Not only is leisure travel from the US down, but business travel too has seen a small fall.

And with the stock markets woes in the country, Indians too are taking fewer holidays.

“People who make a lot of money in the stock market usually take many more short holidays. However, now those people like day traders are not likely to do so,” says Vice Chairman, Mercury Travels, Ashwini Kakkar.

Domestic travel too is showing signs of cooling off. Until last year, hotels and airlines were choc-o-blocked all the way up to March.

However, this year, average load factors in January and February have been about 10 per cent lower than last year. Most hotels too have seen a similar dip.

Nonetheless, travel companies are still optimistic. “We hope domestic travel will improve in the next 2- 3 weeks bit right now its a dip of about 2-3 per cent,” says CMD, Kesaritours, Veena Patil.

These are just initial numbers and the travel community is divided on the forecast for the rest of the year. Some say the US slowdown and the stock market fall could severely impact growth of the tourism industry since this is the first expense that people cut down on. Others believe that come September and numbers will start looking promising.