50 milllion jobs at risk as tourists stay away from demonetised Goa

“We have no customers,” he said. “Almost 90 per cent of tourists are leaving because of the inconvenience caused by notebandi.” Lakhani said he now has no choice but to lay off workers. He is one of Goa’s many restaurant owners who are feeling the brunt of the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, 86 per cent by value of all bank notes.  

At 2.8 per cent, the travel and tourism sector in India grew faster last year than it did worldwide (2.3 per cent). It contributed 6.3 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), including direct, indirect and induced contributions, and translated to Rs 8.3 lakh crore in 2015, according to the World Trade and Tourism Council (WTTC), a forum for the travel and tourism industry. 

Tourism is also a labour-intensive sector, creating 78 jobs for every million rupees invested, according to Tourism Ministry data. The agriculture sector creates 45 jobs for the same investment, and manufacturing, only 18. Ever since 2009, the share of tourism in employment has consistently been over 10 per cent of India’s workforce of 500 million workers. This means that the sector employs almost 50 million people, more than the population of Colombia. 

In 2015, the number of foreign tourists visiting India was over eight million, and earned the country foreign exchange of almost Rs 1.35 lakh crore, a growth of 9.6 per cent over 2014, according to Tourism Ministry data. But if travel entrepreneurs like Lakhani start scaling down their businesses, all this could change. In the weeks following notebandi, it was reported that foreign tourists were being inconvenienced. Bookings also fell rapidly in Kerala and Karnataka. Will King and Hallam Baker-Howard, both UK citizens in their early 20s, landed in Mumbai on November 28 -- 20 days after the imposition of notebandi. They found themselves in the midst of a cash crunch. 

“We went from ATM to ATM in Mumbai during our first three days in India and there were huge lines snaking outside all of them,” King recounted. “Once, after waiting for 45 minutes, we reached the front of the queue, and the cash ran out.” Governments of several countries, including the UK, Australia, and Canada, have issued travel advisories to their citizens about the money trouble they might encounter in India.