Indian Tourism Statistics: UP attracted highest number of domestic tourists

The Ministry of Tourism recently released the Indian Tourist Statistics. According to the report, Uttar Pradesh attracted the highest number of domestic tourists in the country.

Key Findings

• In 2019, the foreign tourist arrival in India increased by 2.2 %. The overall foreign visitors to India in 2019 was 28.9 million. This included non-resident Indians as well. The top five source countries of tourists were Bangladesh, United States, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka and Canada.
• The total foreign exchange value due to tourism in 2019 was 29 billion USD.
• The peak tourism season of India are the first and fourth quarters of a calendar.
• Gender wise distribution: of the foreign tourists arriving India, 58.6% males and 41.4 percent were females.

Indian tourism and the world

According to the the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, International tourist arrivals increased by 4% in 2019. In India this grew by 6.8 % in the same period.

Global tourism index

• India was ranked 34th in the Global tourism index 2019. It moved up by 6 places. It was in the 40th rank in 2018.
• India was in the 58 rank in 2000. After India started to include the non resident Indians under the tourist arrival the improvement ranking was by 17 places.

India e-tourist visa

In 2019, around 5 million tourist visa were applied. E-Tourist visa was introduced in 2015 in India. The biggest e-tourist visa appliers are from UK, US and China.

Reasons for increase in tourist inflow

• In 2019 The Ministry of Tourism opened 137 new speech for Mountaineering and trekking activities in the states of Uttarakhand Jammu and Kashmir Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
• The Tourist e visa fee was reduced from 80 USD to 40 USD.
• The GST on hotel rooms where reduced to 18 percentage.

India’s favourite tourist destinations

The report says that in 2019 the following countries were the favourite tourist destinations of Indians

• Thailand
• Singapore
• United States
• Malaysia
• Dubai
• Sri Lanka
• Australia
• Japan
• Bhutan
• Maldives

Domestic tourism

Taj Mahal and gateway of India where the top spots of domestic tourism. More than 40000 tourists visit these places every day. Uttar Pradesh attracted the maximum number of domestic tourists.

The other states with huge influx of tourists are Kerala, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020