The Impact of Globalization on the Growth of Tourism and Hospitality Essay

The Impact of Globalization on the Growth of Tourism and Hospitality Industry in India - Essay Example Indian tourism and hospitality industry has been poised for a big growth over the last few years owing to multitudinous factors. Among the various drivers of growth of these sectors as a boost for economic development, globalisation and its resultant plea for economy integration of the country with rest of the world is considered to be the key factors. In the light of globalization, the country is forced to keep in track with the needs of the travelers from across the world and find amenities and possibilities to make them happy to sustain the development of the industry. Not only in India, tourism and hospitality is the most sought after service that experience an unprecedented growth and development (Bezbaruah 1999). Indeed, globalization has facilitated the sector in a big way and at the same time there might be some threats, social, cultural; and economic. By virtue of repeated arguments for the liberalization of the economy, India reformed its economic policies in the year 1990 as the first move towards globalization (Bhatia 1995). Since then, there have been many milestones in the service and manufacturing sector that contributed faster economic development than in the past. The globalization of tourism industry and eventual spurt in the hospitality sector has resulted in cross-border delivery of health services for around $140 billion (Chanda 2002). In the first half of the 1990s, hospitality industry has grown at an annual rate of 16% and as of 2007 the total value comes to not less than $34 billion. This is further increased to $34 per capita, or roughly 6% of GDP. It is also estimated that by the end of 2012, the country7's hospitality sector is projected to improve to $40 billion (Emerging market report 2007). At this juncture, the present essay is an attempt to highlight the impact of globalisation on the tourism and hospitality industry. It is understood that globalisation has many dimensions such as economic, socio-cultural, and political and lega l. Therefore, he paper mainly focuses on these implications as a result of globalization. A Brief Note on Globalization The term globalization' was first used by Thodore Levitt in 'The Globalization of Markets'. He used the term to characterize "the vast changes that have taken place over the past two decades in the