Slowdown impacts tourist arrivals in India, Foreign exchange earnings at $24 billion

The global slowdown may have impacted the tourism sector in the country, with foreign tourist arrivals growth (YoY) has decelerated 2.7% in the January-October 2019, after multiple years of high growth. It, however, does state that this trend, is not unique to India, as the growth (YoY) in international tourist arrivals globally also slowed from 7.1% in 2017 to 5.4% in 2018.
Correspondingly, growth in foreign exchange earnings from the tourism sector have slowed in 2018 and 2019 after registering strong growth till 2017.

Foreign exchange earnings totalled US$ 24 billion in January-October 2019, registering a modest growth of 2%. India ranked 22nd in the world in terms of international tourist arrivals in 2018, improving from the 26th position in 2017.

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The survey states that India now accounts for 1.24% of the world’s international tourist arrivals and 5% of Asia & Pacific’s international tourist arrivals. India ranks 13th in the world and 7th in Asia & Pacific in terms of tourism foreign exchange earnings, accounting for close to 2% of the world’s tourism foreign exchange earnings. Foreign tourists from the top 10
countries visiting India are Bangladesh, USA, UK, Sri Lanka, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, China, Germany and Russia.

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These accounted for 65% of the total foreign tourist arrivals in the country Among the foreign tourists, 62.4% tourists visited for leisure, holiday and recreation, 16.3% for business, and 13.5% were part of the diaspora.

The survey says that Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, account for nearly 65% of the total domestic tourist visits in the country in 2018. The top five states attracting foreign tourists are Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan, accounting for about 67 per cent of the total foreign tourist visits in the country in 2018.

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The survey also speaks about the e-Visa scheme that is available for 169 countries with valid entry through 28 designated airports and 5 designated seaports. With this, foreign tourist
arrivals to India on e-visas have increased from 4.45 lakh in 2015 to 23.69 lakh in 2018 and stood at 21.75 lakh in January-October 2019, recording nearly 21% year-on-year growth from the previous year.