India initiates women empowerment tourism

After the launch of Indian government's Project Priyadarshini initiative for involving more women in the tourism sector in New Delhi last year, the project is fast gaining in popularity.

The three-month course trains women as guides and is soon going to conclude in Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Ahmedabad, resulting in over 100 new regional tourist guides. These guides would be certified to work in Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

The project aims at increasing women's participation and visibility in the sector, skewed traditionally 80:20 in favour of men. Working as guides, women assume the role of ambassadors of the tourism industry and the course imparts the in-depth knowledge necessary for the job.

The project was launched in collaboration with the urban employment and poverty alleviation ministry. It aims at women getting support for self-employment in various areas of tourism like art-cum-souvenir shops, cafeterias and facilitation kiosks at tourist destinations etc. Under the three-month training, the women cabbies, for instance, are trained for three months in judo, karate, foreign languages, etiquette and tourist handling. They will also get hands-on training in auto repair and have access to easy loans and subsidies to buy taxis. Apart from manning taxis, the women are trained to work as tourist guides, interfaces at railway offices, hotels, airports, restaurants, information and facilitation kiosks, and cafeterias.

Project Priyadarshini, christened after erstwhile prime minister Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, was launched by the tourism ministry on December 9, 'women's empowerment day'.

The project will focus on capacity building in the tourism sector under which women will be trained through various government institutes, according to tourism secretary A K Mishra.

The training units will include the Institute of Hotel Management Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management, Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering, and a network of India Tourism offices in India. The training will cover the hotel and travel trade sector, airlines, tourist guides, small restaurants, Immigration and Customs, Police and other blue-collar areas. It will also employ housewives of service officers as tourist-cum-shopping guides for high-end foreign tourists.

The women cabbies, for instance, will be trained for three months in judo, karate, foreign languages, etiquette and tourist handling. They will also get hands-on training in auto repair and have access to easy loans and subsidies to buy taxis.

The project's timing is certainly good, considering the last two years have seen tourism emerge as one of the major growth sectors of the Indian economy. Forex earnings from tourism rose from Rs 16,429 crore in 2004 to Rs 21,828 crore in December 2005.

Simultaneously there has been a 17.3 per cent surge in foreign tourist arrivals, the highest over the last decade, for the same period. The ministry's capacity building funds have also increased with the central tourism budget being upped from Rs 350 crore in 2004 to Rs 800 crore in 2005.

Monsoon Tourism, Buddhist Tourism, Eco Tourism, Medical and Rural Tourism are the other initiatives of the tourism ministry. Project Priyadarshini is part of the ministry's sensitisation programme — Atithi Devo Bhavah or 'guest is God' — which was launched a year ago at a cost of Rs5 crore. The ministry hopes the effort will also bring about a mindset change with regard to women's potential in this sector.

Project Priyadarshini's with its clear focus on enhancing women's employability in India, comes against the backdrop of a study conducted recently by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which shows that women constitute a dismal six per cent of the total workforce in large Indian organisations whereas their employment in medium-sized companies is only a tad better at 18 per cent. Even in the rural workforce, the balance is skewed — out of the 310 million workers, only 111 million are women.

The tourism sector — which has already demonstrated its potential for carving out jobs and creating income-generating activities for women to benefit local communities in destination areas — might help improve this ratio. It can simultaneously provide various entry points for women's employment in small and medium-scale activities in synergy with other stakeholders — governments and intergovernmental bodies, local government, industry, local communities, NGOs and community-based tourism initiatives.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 46 per cent of the workforce in the tourism sector comprises women. Amongst countries where tourism is a more mature industry, women account for up to 50 per cent of the workforce.

More female participation in the future will be fuelled by the growth in the industry. For instance, by 2007, according to Tourism Ministry estimates, direct and indirect employment from tourism in India will scale up to 66 million from the current 41 million.

The tourism multiplier for every Rs 1 million invested in this sector creates 47 jobs. This is four times the number of jobs — 12 on an average — created for an equivalent investment in other sectors. This holds out special possibilities for the relatively disadvantaged segments of society like unemployed youth, women and the physically challenged.