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Sunday 17 June 2018

Hospitality Sector – its current emergence and the many facets and the many opportunities for growth

Our Traditional culture of hospitality and warmth is deep rooted. In Sanskrit there is a saying that we are familiar with courtesy the may promotional material on tourism. “Atithhee Devo Bhava’/ We are taught to treat our guests as god be it at our home or in our homeland. The implication is that we should welcome and open our arms and treat our guests with love and respect, dignity and ensure the comfort safety and honour that we bestow on god.

Back to modern times tourism is no longer confined to people travelling for the sake of seeing the world. Tourism today has many facets – people need to travel for medical purposes, for employment, for skill training, education and research, for photography, for business opportunity, for agricultural initiatives or for preservation of nature and world, for social work and the list goes on. This of course opens up the conversation on what is possible and what can be done by way of support services to ensure that we have the right infrastructure and services and the cultural readiness to support the multi dimensional and multi cultural environment that is the rising trend worldwide.

Tourism sector needs to gear up to offer not just the traditional package to tourists but perhaps needs to come up with innovative packages which could attract and meet the expectation of the people travelling for passion like culinary adventure or photography or skill training or new initiatives. Times Travel does a passion travel trail for art and culture and culinary trail. More players need to come up with ideas that can attract people to make journeys possible. Medical tourism is an area that has brought in large number of people to India from the neighbouring countries of India where medical facilities and expertise are not as good. Since medical treatment in USA or some other developed countries  are expensive, a lot of people from Africa and other Asian countries as well as some developed countries come to India for more affordable but world class treatment. The fact that most educated Indians speak a high amount of English also helps. India’s booming services of diagnostics and telemedicine are triggers.

Hospitality Sector’s  is closely related to this growth in incoming tourists. Be it the need for affordable but good accommodation facilities to meet all ranges of pockets or the need for healthy hygienic food, support services for the elderly and sick ( transport, forex, safety , valet, Ayurvedic treatment Spa, ) the need and possibilities are endless.  Not just large scale hotels and corporate services, a lot of small initiatives to bring in localised facilities are possible. Skill of language is something that can be leverages since not every from other countries may be comfortable with English. Translator services is clearly possible. Likewise a lot of other people to people support services and offerings are possible creating further employment opportunities. Young students from Hospitality sector or other sector equipped with skills to deal with people or all the range of skills taught at a finishing school may be able to participate and steer growth in these areas.

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