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Tourism Industry - India

Conde Nast Traveler, one of the World’s most famous magazines on tourism ranked India among the top 10th tourist destinations in the world. Tourism is the third highest net earner of foreign exchange for the countryand also one of the sectors that employs the largest number of manpower. The growth in tourism industry has been about 230% since 1990 to 2000. It is estimated that the tourism industry could contribute about US $1.8 billion to the GDP by 2020.
Indian tourism is one of the most diverse products on the global scene. India has 26 world heritage sites. It is divided into 25 bio-geographic zones and has wide ranging eco tourism products. Apart from this, India has a 6,000 km coastline and dozens of beaches. India's great ethnic diversity translates into a wide variety of cuisine and culture. India also has a large number of villages, plantations and adventure locations. India is home to a great variety of wildlife and its reserves are well known throughout the world. It also has one of the world's biggest railway systems opening possibilities for those interested in rail tourism. India also has excellent hospitals offering affordable medicare and traditional healthcare systems like Ayurveda. In addition to this India organizes numerous fairs and festivals, which are quite attractive to foreigners.
Tourism sector holds immense potential for Indian economy. Tourism sector has the potential to stimulate other economic sectors through its backward and forward linkages and cross-sectional synergies with sectors like agriculture,horticulture, poultry,handicrafts, transport, construction,etc. Recogonising the importance of this sector, in the recent country budget, the provision for building tourist infrastructue has been increased from US$ 95.6 million in 2006-07 to US$ 117.5 million in 2007-08.

Regarding infrastructure
According to the Ministry of Tourism, during January - November 2007, total tourist inflow stood at 4402045 as against 3905596 in the same...