Tourism industry basically depicts the services offered by companies to its customers who choose to spend a leisure time taking break from their work or travel at their work or travel on honey moon or pilgrimage or studies or as a hobby with their friends or family.
In the recent years travel and tourism companies have come up with services meeting the needs of the tourists in a more proactive way. Online ticket booking and offering of tourism packages online, resorts and home stays, medical tourism, spa are some of the developments in the area of travel and tourism.
India has huge potential for growth in the domestic as well as international tourism. Though the industry to some extent depends upon the performance of other industries like IT / Electronics / Manufacturing / Automobiles and so on; it is necessary in the current scenario for companies to offer services / tourism packages so that the travel is not localized to few segments / clusters of the market. This helps companies to experience a steady growth in their business.
A tourist would basically look at spending good time with friends / family during their travel period.
Hence a company would ideally be interested in offering solutions to the customer depending upon the needs of the tourist like domestic tourism package / international package, adventure sports or wild life, pilgrimage or nature tourism, honeymoon packages, picnics for school kids and so on in an integrated & efficient way at an affordable cost.
Some of the problems / limitations faced by tourists are travel sickness, language, difference in food habits, crowd at tourism spots, family commitments, pollution, tourism period being seasonal, tourists being new to the tourism spot and so on. It is necessary for companies to address these issues so that people enjoy and have a good time during the tour.
Looking at the way ahead domestic and international tourism, sports events like Common wealth games 2010 & ICC Cricket world Cup 2011, medical tourism, identifying of new markets, introduction of innovative tourism packages with integrated service would help companies ensure a sustainable growth in the industry.