Visa Enters Partnership to Skill India's Tourism Workforce Amid Shortage — India Report

03.09.2024 - 05:10 / skift.com / Bulbul Dhawan / London

India’s Tourism and Hospitality Skill Council (THSC) has entered into a three-year partnership with global payments gateway Visa. The agreement is valued at around $1 million, with the aim to skill at least 20,000 youth for tourism-related jobs, according to the ministry of skill development. 

As part of the partnership, youths from 10 Indian states, including Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal, will be trained for roles essential to the tourism industry: tour guides, customer service executives, naturalists, and paragliding tandem pilots. 

Travel and tourism are two of the largest industries in India, contributing close to $200 billion to its GDP.

The Employment Gap: The Indian hotel, tourism, and restaurant sectors are expected to create about 200,000 jobs in the next 12 to 18 months, recruitment company TeamLease Services had said in a report. Companies are recruiting for permanent, temporary, and gig positions, the report said. 

However, an earlier report by THSC had highlighted that young workers were leaving the industry due to low wages and extended hours. 

Speaking to Skift, Dilip Puri, founder, Indian School of Hospitality, had said that these challenges were leading to young professionals being poached by other sectors, with a significant number of students graduating from hospitality schools finding better opportunities in retail, real estate, and start-ups. 

According to industry leaders, competitive salaries and incentives such as health insurance and work-life balance are necessary to retain talent. 

Recently, Sarovar Hotels announced the launch of Sarovar Leadership Development Program in collaboration with Indian School of Hospitality. The program is aimed at providing career development opportunities to young professionals in the hotel industry, while overcoming the challenge of lack of adequate workforce across the sector.

Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company has launched the Kotak Nifty India Tourism Index Fund. The scheme replicates Nifty’s tourism index, and consists of stocks selected from the Nifty 500 Index to represent the travel and tourism theme.

This comes after Tata Asset Management in July launched its tourism index fund in India: Tata Nifty India Tourism Index Fund. Kotak’s fund is similar to the one launched by Tata, which also aims to mirror the performance of Nifty’s tourism index.

In June, India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) launched the Nifty India Tourism Index to showcase the performance of travel and tourism companies within the Nifty 500 Index. The index serves as a benchmark for tracking expected returns in the tourism sector. NSE creating the tourism index indicates a significant demand and investor interest in tourism-related stocks in the