A Comparative Study of India and China Contributions to Tourism

The rising economic significance and potential of tourism has gone hand in hand with a growing global interest in the sector. The opening of the markets in India after 1990 and in China in the 1979 threw up many opportunities for the two leaders of the developing nations. The rising GDP in the two countries, coupled with high population with abundant rural poverty puts equal compelling pressure on the two economies to boost up the employment generation sectors. Tourism with its multiplier effects has been already established as major contributor to both GDP and employment. Global Travel & Tourism growth is still being driven by emerging economies such as China (12.3% in 2011 and 8.7% in 2012) and India (5.1% in 2011 and 6.0% in 2012). This means that Travel & Tourism is predicted to generate voluminous extra jobs by 2021, including direct, indirect and induced employment. Almost 4 in 5 of these jobs are expected to be in Asia (excluding Japan), Latin America, the Middle East and Africa (Economic Impact of Travel & Tourism: WTTC, 2011). The study is a comparative analysis on Travel and Tourism growth in the two fast countries to reflect on the future prospect of tourism growth in Asia.