India is planning to increase the number of international arrivals it welcomes each year.
The country’s Minister of State for Culture & Tourism, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, revealed last week that India welcomed 6.97 million international visitors in 2013. This marked an increase of just 5.9% compared to the 6.58m arrivals seen in 2012, and just 10.5% more than 2011.
In turn, international tourism revenues totalled just INR1.076 trillion (US$17.6 billion) in 2013, 14.0% up year-on-year.
Shri Naik noted that these totals remained much lower than Thailand, which welcomed 26.7m international visitors last year, despite being a much smaller country than India.
The minister said that India’s tourism sector was being held back by several factors, including “air connectivity, extent of awareness amongst the source countries, availability of trained guides, reasonably priced hotel accommodation [and] good tourism infrastructure”.
To combat this, Shri Naik reiterated the slew of measures the Indian government is now undertaking to boost arrivals.
These include the expansion of its visa-on-arrival scheme, the development of the low-cost aviation sector, moves to improve the cleanliness and hygiene of tourism sites, the development of transport infrastructure including railways and highway facilities, the training of tour guides and a “rationalisation” of taxes.
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