Tourism and Hospitality Industry in India: Current Trends

This article explores the tourism and hospitality industry of India and highlights the current trends of this sector such as the niche target segment trend and the trend of healthy/vegan food in Indian restaurants. Discover the cruise tourism, adventure tourism, eco and rural tourism, and medical and wellness tourism. Learn about the interest for the sour flavours in vegan foods and the craze of Ginger Tea/Ginger water.

The means of travel and the communications have brought far off countries close to
each others. The result is that people have grown a keen desire to travel in the different parts
of the world. The interest has grown up mostly due to man’s quest for knowledge. The living
standards of people have improved rapidly and the transports like train, air, bus have come
within the closer reach of people. As a consequence, the volume of the tourist traffic has also
increased. The Tourism and hospitality industry has become one of the largest and fast
growing industries along with being a rich source of foreign exchange (Tolkach, Chon &
Xiao, 2016). Through this industry, the employment rates of a country strengths along with
the entire economic status. This article will explore the tourism and hospitality industry of an
enriched country like India and highlight the current trends of this sector. The selected trends
are the niche target segment trend and the trend of healthy/vegan food in Indian restaurants.
India is referred to as a sub-continent due to its vastness along with huge potential for
tourism development. The country is abundant with the historical places, great shrines,
monuments and temples. Notably, there are also wildlife sanctuaries, winter sports places, sea
resorts and hill stations. The country significantly offers an enriched variety of religions,
cultures, languages, festivals, music and fairs. Without any doubt, India’s potential for the
tourism is equally vast and varied. Every year, millions of visitors contribute in making the
Indian lands colourful and diverse. In this way, the infrastructure of the country is being
strengthened and there are many promotional activities too used to attract greater mass of
foreign tourists (Roy, Sethuraman & Saran, 2016).
In order to enhance the diverse tourist attractions, India has recently focused on the
development of the beaches and hilly resorts. The biggest tourist generating markets have
undertaken the responsibility of publicity through the tourist locations in Australia, North
America, East and West Asia along with Europe. Both the organizational and promotional
functions are undertaken by the Department of Tourism of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil

Aviation. The Indian Tourism Development Corporation works in close coordination with the
foreign departments. The marketing and publicity departments work in coordination with the
regional offices both at home and abroad. India has its most active tourist offices in Paris,
Brussels, Toronto, Los Angeles, Milan, Kuwait, Singapore, Sydney and many other places.
As an addition, the promotion offices are located in Dallas, San Francisco, Melbourne,
Qsaka, Washington, Kathmandu and Miami.
The country has engaged itself with the domestic tourism, the domestic tourist
literature in Hindi has been produced. At the bird sanctuary of Bharatpur, the forest lodges
have been constructed along with a number of wild life sanctuaries. The youth tourists are
promoted through the youth hostels in various parts of the country. Dharmashala and Musafir
khanas are built for the pilgrims. The Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering in
Gulmarg looks after the water skiing and snow skiing. The foreign tourists are further
encouraged with the regulations related to the customs and currency liberalization.
According to the Indian Scheme, there are stopover facilities for travelling on Indian Airlines
domestic services. There are few special trains too Great Indian Rover for travelling to the
Buddhist places all over India.
The current trends in India (Niche tourism segments)
The Ministry of Tourism in India has taken the initiative of recognizing and
promoting niche products across the country. In order to attract more tourists having specific
interests, this initiative has been taken which ensures repeated visits of the tourists for the
uniqueness in India. It is supporting the country in gaining better competitive advantage. The
Ministry of Tourism has also constituted the committees for promoting Golf Tourism and
Medical & Wellness Tourism. The products that have been considered as Niche products are
as follows: Adventure, Cruise, Wellness, Medical, Polo, Golf, Film –tourism, Eco-tourism,

sustainable tourism and Meetings incentives conferences & exhibitions (MICE). Ten Indian
states having most number of tourists are Tamil Nadu, Delhi, West Bengal, Goa, Kerala,
Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Bihar. The five topmost
countries having visited India for the maximum time are United States, United Kingdom,
Bangladesh, Canada and Germany. In India, recently the ‘niche’ tourist segment is being
focused on. As per The Ministry of Tourism India having a vast and beautiful coast line, the
undisturbed idyllic islands and virgin forests along with the cultural heritage, can emerge as a
unique tourist destination for the cruise tourists.
The cruise tourism
There are mainly two types of Cruise tourism such as the Ocean Cruise and the
River Cruise. The Cruise tourism is all about travelling in a ship with all types of facilities
and entertainment. One of the biggest cruise tourism of India is developing in the Cochin
port. On the other hand, the river cruise is growing in the Krishna and Godavari in Andhra
Pradesh, the Ganga Heritage river Cruise in West Bengal and the Zuari rivers in Goa.

The Adventure Tourism
In the adventure tourism consist of any of the constrictive activity that tests both a
person’ and the equipment’s endurance and goes to the extreme level of adventure. The
adventure travel includes the travel explorations to the exotic areas. It further includes
activities like para-gliding, hand-gliding, river rafting, bungee jumping, aero-sports, rock
climbing and others. These are identified as the adventure tourist activities.
The medical and wellness tourism
It is about the travelling for gaining, enriching and maintaining the maximum health
along with a proper sense of well-being. It is all about being quite proactive in terms of
discovering different ways for promoting a healthy and less stressed life. It is more about
The Indian Cruise Tourism

finding the balance of life. The goal of the tourists is to gain the health-care treatments such
as surgeries, alternative medicines, psychiatry and others. The wellness tourism also includes
treatments like Unani, Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha and others and many Indian resorts have
started providing this type of services.
Eco and rural tourism
The eco-tourism is about travelling to pristine, fragile and protected areas. This is the
purpose of educating the travellers and providing the funds for the ecological conservation. It
is beneficial for the political and the local communities. In order to showcase the rural life,
the heritage and cultures in the rural locations among villages the rural tourism grows
(Tandon, Gupta & Tripathi, 2016). It provides the view of the crafts, handlooms, natural
environments and textiles.
Healthy food trend in Indian Restaurants
The Indian food and beverage sector is one of the most extensive sectors that evolve
in nature with the evolving trends of the restaurants. This is already the largest retail
consumption category and accounts for approximately 31 % of the consumption basket of the
country as compared to US, Brazil and China. Along with the growth in population,
globalization and the advancement of Internet, the restaurant food trends are undergoing huge
change. In the previous years, there were many trends and there is many more to come in the
coming years. Apart from the food trucks, ice-cream parlours, fine dining and casual dining
along with the cloud kitchens, there are more attractions in the hospitality industry of India
(Sugandhi & Maheswari, 2016).
The demand for the healthy food

The interest towards the whole food has been significant since the beginning of the
year 2017. It is perceived to be healthy as in this food trend, gluten is completely avoided
and carbohydrates are cut down. The whole foods are those items which have been refined
and processed minimum and free from the artificial substances or additives. The whole food
items include coconut chips, purple cauliflower, tonics, beets noodles and alternative pastas.
Additionally, the grain pasta has also extended the range and enhanced the sales performance.
Moreover, the soup meals innovations are also increasing rapidly. In fact, the millennial are
also performing wholesome soup bowls which are cost-effective too. Since the years 2018,
this trend has also made the restaurants of India more attractive and cost-friendly. One of the
biggest food manufacturing brand like Himalaya has planned to have an entry in the
restaurant space at the later part of the year presenting a healthy food centered franchisee
named ‘Burger and Fries’. The use of fermentation in the Indian food has taken a high ground
in the current year. Fermentation has always supported the Indian restaurants to innovate
easily through the experimentation. The power food habit is in the run of being the centre of
attraction in the Indian platter such as flax seeds, chia-seeds, turmeric and veggies too.
Chia-seeds platter

The Vegan food habits
In the range of healthy food, the vegan food is in the topmost range. Since people are
becoming more health-conscious they are opting to the vegan food as soon as possible. The
Indian population is huge who are in support of the vegan food and healthy alternatives. In
order to harness the potential for the massive crowd of vegans, the Indian restaurants have
brought great vegan alternatives in the food menu. Sushi as a plant based vegan form has
already attracted the buzz around the country. The whole food such as tuna roll is a delicious
vegan alternative made of tomatoes. The vegan foods are also becoming a well-grooved plan
for attracting the niche market of vegans. The market has been hit by the grain cheese and
soy-milk and taken place at the diet of almost every vegan. These new restaurant trends have
enriched the Indian platter and formed the space for special attraction (David & Coan, 2018).
The vegan flavours of India

The interest for the sour flavours in vegan foods
The Indian food culture is abundant in sour ingredients along with condiments as
kokum, raw mango, lemon, tamarind and mango, kachampuli vinegar, tree tomato and others.
One of the trendy foods is “Okra in tamarind sauce”. The Indian tourists and the foreigners
too are taking huge interest in the healthier version of food such as “khichdi” and other
traditional meals as found from the Instagram and Facebook feeds. People are realizing that
the traditional meals are healthier and most relevant to busy and less active lifestyle. The
special attraction is the “pearl millet khichdi” with all the flavours and proteins.
The craze of Ginger Tea/Ginger water
In the healthy food menu of Indian restaurants, digestive, warming, soothing and
appetising ginger has occupied a special place. The craving for Ginger water has increased up
by 353 % . It is used for brewing tea or drinking alone as an infused water. It is also used as
base for the soft drinks and this trend has been much appreciated by the “ Ginger-chai”(tea)
loving Indians (Arora & Ramawat, 2019).
Therefore, on a concluding note it can be said that Tourism and hospitality industry
has become one of the largest and fast growing industries along with being a rich source of
foreign exchange. Through this industry, the employment rates of a country strengths along
with the entire economic status. This article has explored the tourism and hospitality industry
of an enriched country like India and highlighted the current trends of this sector such as the
niche target segment trend and the trend of healthy/vegan food in Indian restaurants. It is

found that the five topmost countries having visited India for the maximum time are United
States, United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Canada and Germany. In India, recently the ‘niche’
tourist segment is being focused on. As the vegan foods, the whole food items, the vegetables
and gluten free items have been identified. As the niche target segment, the eco-rural tourism,
cruise tourism and adventure tourism are the foremost ones. As per my views, India is an
enriched country and everyone should visit and enjoy as the country has a lot to amaze use.

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