*Dean & HOD, MDU, Rohtak, India.
**Associate Professor, Department of Commerce, DAV Centenary College, FBD, India.
***HEAD & DEAN, Department of Commerce, DAV Centenary College, FBD, India.
Online published on 21 January, 2013.
In the current century travel and tourism is the world's highest growth sector. There has been an unprecedented growth in the world's foreign tourist arrivals and foreign tourism receipts. The paper focuses on the standing of India's foreign tourist arrivals and foreign tourism receipts at global level and the competitiveness of Indian tourism industry in the global context and thereby suggests measures to Ministry of tourism, Government of India to boost foreign tourist arrivals. The statistics in the paper are based on secondary information collected from the official website of Ministry of tourism, Government of India, United Nations World Tourism Highlights (UNWTO) 1990–2011 and different journals and books. Besides this the suggestions offered to the ministry of tourism are compiled from the qualitative aspect of responses in the questionnaire of my Ph.D research work and also from secondary sources. The researcher concludes that globally, India is very poorly placed when it comes to foreign tourist arrivals and foreign exchange earnings. Moreover the destination competitiveness of India is by and large adversely affected by poor man made attractions. Thus to enhance India's ranking as a global tourist destination, efforts have to be made in this line in particular. In this way India could better utilize its blessed natural factors and thereby increase the number of foreign visitors.
competitiveness, foreign tourism receipts, foreign tourists arrivals, tourism
