India e-visa applicants jump 956%
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
The number of tourists visiting India on electronic tourist visas (e-visas) surged 956% in the first half of 2015, following the expansion of the scheme.
The government of India rolled out the e-visa programme to the citizens of 43 countries on 27 November 2015, and then to a further 33 nationalities in 2015. This has led to a spike in the number of e-visa arrivals to India, with 126,214 tourists registering for the online entry system in the first half of 2015, compared with just 11,953 during January-June 2014.
In June 2015 alone, 15,557 tourists arrived on e-visas, up 634% year-on-year. Visitors from the USA accounted for 41.7% of the total, followed by Australia (9.7%), Germany (7.2%), Canada (4.9%) and South Korea (4.3%).
In terms of arrival point, Delhi Airport issued 43.1% of e-visas, ahead of Mumbai (22.3%), Bengaluru (11.7%), Chennai (9.8%) and Hyderabad (4.9%) airports.
Recently, India’s Ministry of Tourism confirmed that the e-visa scheme would be expanded to cover 150 countries from March 2016.
Comments are closed.