The industry aims to appeal to bigger spenders - including the huge number of Indians living abroad.

Currently only 2.6m people visit India a year - a large proportion of whom are budget travellers who don't contribute a great deal to the economy.

That compares with Switzerland which attracts 6m a year, and Spain which brings in 13m tourists.

Long haul

Part of the problem is that India is a long-haul destination for European and American travellers.

For that reason Ranjit Malkani, the managing director of Kuoni India, which specialises in high-quality tours, thinks India should concentrate first on encouraging its own citizens to take holidays within the country.

"When we are able to generate sufficient domestic demand, we will have the infrastructure to attract the foreigner," he told the BBC's World Business Report.

Mr Malkani explained that in Japan and the US, the two biggest tourist markets in the world, the backbone of infrastructure was built for the domestic tourist rather than the foreigner.

Travel discouraged

The industry has to made some fundamental changes however.

India has traditionally had a socialist government and tourism was considered a luxury product.

"People were not encouraged to travel except for religious reasons," Mr Malkani said.