Tourism sector can emerge as largest contributor to India’s GDP: Shekhawat

While addressing the Tourism Sustainability Summit 2025, organized by FHRAI (The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India), in the National capital , Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat exhorted the tourism industry stakeholders to ensure massive expansion of the sector as this sector alone, in coming years, will emerge largest contributor to country’s GDP growth. He said tourism sector is the growth engine of our country. He underlined the fact that Indian economy is increasing at a fast pace and likewise, country’s tourism sector has immense potential to make advancement at a parallel speed.

Hon’ble Minister said the world is mesmerized at the fast growth of Indian economy and this was a topic of discussion at a recent summit in Davos that Indian economy may get doubled in a span of eight years. The Union Tourism Minister underlined the challenges being posed by alarming climate change to this sector that required immediate attention. He said climate change is knocking at our door as the glaciers are constricting and this requires immediate intervention.

The Union Tourism Minister said our tourism sector was facing serious challenges and this required immediate brainstorming by the Industry leaders and everyone should take the pledge to own the responsibility. If we fix our development target and work accordingly, we will attain the target.

Additional Secretary, Ministry of tourism Shri. Suman Billa (IAS) said Artificial Intelligence (AI) can contribute to the growth of tourism sector as large number of tourists are using APP based applications. He said India is aspiring to become third largest country in the world in terms of tourism sector by 2047. Incredible India should include best global practices. He said the world is growing but not as fast as India is growing. Are we going to grow bigger or are we growing to grow better, this is the challenge. Whether we are growing to grow better and make it sustainable is the challenge. He said, if tourism sector is left unmanaged, it may lead to cultural dilution. We have to make tourism to empower our cultural heritage. Mission Life is another important area. It is about daily life activity, from mindless consumption to mindful living. Ministry of Tourism has launched its own sustainability programme. This industry can support the local craft in a big manner and it can lead to transformation and change. We must focus that the tourism industry is climate resilient.

Billa underlined we should use local material and include the products of local people. When we grant sanction to projects, we see if it has sustainability in terms of jobs, ensures livelihood and how we engage communities in the growth of tourism sector. Many a time, community is left as bystander. To the contrary, we must ensure that the local community is a stakeholder in the industry. Our community should be taken into account and we should encourage homestays with local communities to strengthen this sector.

The Principal Secretary, Ministry of tourism in Madhya Pradesh, Sheo Shankar Shukla said the state of Madhya Pradesh offered plethora of opportunity to the tourists from India and abroad. He said 14 UNSESCO approved sites were in Madhya Pradesh. The state has forest cover upto 25 per cent, 12 national parks and two jyotirlingas- Ujjain and Onmkareshwar. Narmada river has series of dams. All these sites had culminated into huge surge in tourism and the footfall is going through roofs.

Sheo Shankar Shukla said the state government had divided the state into five cultural zones having seven tribes and 45 sub-tribes. Now the MP government was encouraging rural tourism and Tribal tourism having convenient homestay facilities. The state government was showcasing the rural life of the state as the best destination and state had carved out tourism villages in Madhya Pradesh. At least fifty new destination were being added. The MP government was also encouraging cruise tourism to ensure that the footfall was diversified at several attractive locations.

President of FHRAI K Syama Raju said this summit has extended and important platform to discuss best solutions to the problems being faced by this industry. Our country has huge natural resources and such spots may get converted into attractive tourism destinations. Such innovative ideas and natural destinations are catching the tourists from across the globe. The other aspect is that this summit had provided huge opportunity for collaboration between the policy makers and tourism industry stake holders. Such engagements and conceptual brainstorming will usher tourism industry into future growth and attract the tourists from all over the country and abroad.

Hemant Jain, President PHDCCI said that our hotels and restaurants had to be sustainable as large number of guests were visiting India from UK and US. Now we should focus upon strengthening tourism sector on sustainable model. We should look forward towards states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh to get this sustainable models already working in these states.

Glen Mandziuk, CEO, World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, UK said that this industry was waiting to work for something which had more future prospects and top companies around the world are curious. There are tremendous pattern on investment in sustainability. We have tremendous value chains of leading technology companies to support the high growth of this industry. All General Managers can be trained on the sustainability development.