印度市场洞察

INDIA March 2014 This Market Insight is one of an ongoing series of market profiles produced by the Market Intelligence Group [MIG] ofthe European Travel Commission [ETC]. New market profiles are added to the series and updated at regular intervals. The members of the MIG comprise the Research Directors of the 33 National Tourist Offices (NTOs) who are membersof ETC. The group regularly commissions and publishes market intelligence studies, handbooks on methodologiesand best practice, and facilitates the exchange of European tourism statistics and other indicators. A complete overview of ETC’s programme of market intelligence activities – including links to studies and sources ofEuropean tourism statistics – can be found on the organisation’s corporate website:www.etc-corporate.org. OVERVIEW •India has become one of the world's fastest-growing outbound travel markets. UNWTO ranked India23rd in the world in 2012, in terms of international tourism expenditure, with a total spend, excludingtransport, of US$12.3 bn – up 50% on 2007 in US dollar terms and 70% in current rupee terms. •Outbound trips rose by 6.7% in 2012 to 14.9 mn, after increasing by an average of 11.9% per annum in2001-11. Preliminary estimates for 2013 point to a further 7% rise. •There are many positive factors influencing Indian demand for outbound travel. The national economyhas been strong and middle-class disposable incomes have been rising very fast. Airline capacity hasrisen sharply. And, thanks to the relaxation of exchange controls, Indians are allowed to take up toUS$10,000 per annum abroad for leisure trips. India's large diaspora and growing openness to the •However, in 2011-13 there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth and heavy depreciations in thevalue of the rupee, resulting in some slackening in the growth in demand for outbound travel. •The great majority of Indians cannot ordinarily afford to travel abroad. The 14.7 mn departures in2012 represented just 1.2% of the total population. There is a strong distinction between upper-middle class travellers (leisure, VFR and business), often travelling on a tight budget, and a small but •It is nevertheless difficult to generalise about the Indian travel market, as individual destinations tendto cater for different segments – e.g. VFR travel, basic family holidays, long- or short-stay business •Europe is estimated to account for around 17.5% of cumulative world arrivals from India. SeveralEuropean countries rank among Indians' ideal destinations but, in practice, the majority of Indians ECONOMIC PROFILE Currency •The rupee had remained roughly stable in real trade-weighted terms in 2002-08, generally risingagainst the US dollar and falling against the euro, before falling sharply against the US dollar during •It then staged a partial recovery in the second half of 2009 which lasted until July 2011. However,since then it has suffered a series of rapid declines, notably in August-December 2011, March-June •These declines partly reflected movements in the value of the US dollar rather than the rupee inparticular, and the rupee has been declining rather more steadily against the euro and sterling since •India's economic growth has stepped up a gear since the late 1990s, in line with the worldwide surgein prosperity among 'emerging' economies, and in particular as a result of the relaxation of the'license raj' (strict licensing and regulation of economic activity) which for so long hampered the •However, there was a slowdown in economic growth in 2011-13. Again, this was in line with theslowdown among emerging economies worldwide, and again it was accentuated by factors special(though not exclusive) to India: activity is running up against constraints imposed by dysfunctional •Thus, GDP growth slackened from 10.5% in FY2008 to 3.2% in FY2012. The IMF, in itsWorld EconomicOutlook of October 2013 (IMF WEO), forecast increases of 3.8% in FY2013, 5.1% in FY2015 and 6.3% inFY2016. However, it has reduced its estimate of India's 'potential growth rate' from 7.3% a year in itsforecasts two years ago to 5.3%. There is a good deal of disagreement among economists about this •In spite of these problems, some sectors of the economy, and some parts of the country, are still veryprosperous. Famously, India has highly competitive export-oriented IT and business services •The bottlenecks in the economy are associated with a problem with inflation, which reached a peak of16% in January 2010 and was still at 9.9% in December 2013. The IMF expects it to average 10.9% in •India is running substantial fiscal and current account deficits, leading the Reserve Bank of India topursue a tight monetary policy with high interest rates, which is having an effect on investment and •The Confederation of Indian Industry's index of business confidence, which had risen to peaks of 71.2in Q1 2007 and 67.6 in Q3 2010, has been languishing close to its record lows of around 50, in 2012 and2013. Th