Tourism sector to generate 25 million jobs in 12th Plan

India's tourism sector, including both in-bound and domestic, has been projected to grow at an annual rate of 12 per cent, generating additional jobs of about 25 million during the 12th Fiver year Plan.

The hospitality sector alone is expected to provide direct employment to around 3.6 million people during the 2012-17 plan period, union minister for tourism Subodh Kant Sahai said today.

He was addressing a function for presenting the National Awards for excellence in hospitality education for the year 2010-11, in New Delhi.

The hospitality industry needs about 2 lakh trained persons every year but the supply is just about 18,000 persons, which gets further reduced to about 12,000 persons after adjusting an attrition of about 30 to 35 per cent, Sahai said.

The tourism minister said the government, on its part, has been actively trying to bridge the skilled manpower shortage by setting up more government-sponsored IHMs and FCIs, broad-basing training and education through the aegis of universities, ITIs, colleges, polytechnics, PSUs, schools etc, establishing short-term hospitality courses, upgrading the skills of existing as well as aspiring service providers through ''Hunar Se Rozgaar'' programme, skills testing and certification of the existing service providers.

''As per our estimate, by the close of the Eleventh Plan, our efforts to expand the institutional infrastructure and broad-basing of hospitality education through universities, colleges, ITIs, polytechnics and schools is expected to increase the supply of trained persons in a major way,'' he said.