Hospitality industry: Silver lining for employment, GDP contribution

The canvass of hospitality industry is having no bounds, the glamour through television cookery shows may be focusing on chef, but that is just one small part of the opportunity in the industry. A service sector in terms of tourism, air and train travel, hotel and restaurant opening, home delivery of food, corporate hospitals, tiffin services etc. that is growing at the pace of a GDP increase of around one percent. The consumer spend may be showing a general downtrend in terms of eating out but then the home delivery and travel industry have not shown the slide.

Hospitality industry contributes to nearly 8% of employment opportunities. Tourism itself showed numbers in 2018 at 10.56 million witnessing a growth of 5.20% year on year. The catering in air travel is becoming more and more niche, new hotels and restaurants are specializing itself with experimentations, home delivery of food has shown a jump of 5% in metros besides homemade services through self-help groups or individual household industry is also on increasing trend. The kitchen appliance industry is getting more and more modernized and the penetration of equipment’s and appliances even in rural areas is increasing. With electric connection to every household, the demand for kitchen appliances is bound to show a jump. Its contribution together to GDP may touch 2% if we also explore the opportunities in the corporate hospitals where only the clinical side is attended by doctors but the rest housekeeping is now taken care of by the experts from hospitality industry.

Hospitality industry even at the smallest joint now needs a professional approach. The legal provisioning of licences, food safety provisions and disaster mitigation like fire and cleanliness is the mandatory requirement for the entrant in the industry. The consumers are aware and demanding but then equally reward the good service by repeat visits. The food joint need clearances from local municipal bodies, fire services, food quality provisions, storage, labour laws etc. A good check on all the statutory requirements is half the good beginning. Then, the skill, quality and consistency is the game changer. There is need that besides recipes the consumer is made aware of the efforts put in by hospitality industry to make life comfortable.

In service sector hospitality will be not just employment provider but become a very creative sector with more and more avenues being added to it. International trends have also shown growth in the sector. India with wide geographical spread, tourist attractions, Variety of cuisines has already become a treatment destination through medical tourism gives great opportunities to the entrepreneurs to venture in the sector and succeed.

(Writer is a retd. IAS Officer of Madhya Pradesh Cadre)

(This story has been published under arragement from Better Kitchen magazine)