NEW DELHI: Domestic tourism remained the backbone of the sector with visits increasing by about 17.5 per cent in 2024 over the previous year and by nearly 52.7 percent during January-September 2025 compared with the corresponding period last year, said the Economic Survey.
The report was tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
According to the Survey, International Tourist Arrivals (ITAs), including foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) and arrivals of non-resident Indians (NRIs), also rose to 20.57 million, marking an increase of 8.9 per cent over 2023 and 14.8 per cent above pre-pandemic levels of 2019.
Foreign tourist arrivals, however, remained below pre-pandemic levels, declining by about 11.8 per cent during January-October 2025 relative to the same period of the previous year.
As per the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism, in FY24, travel and tourism contributed 5.22 percent to GDP, close to pre-pandemic levels, while supporting an estimated 8.46 crore direct and indirect jobs or about 13.3 per cent of total employment in the overall economy.
Consistent with this growth, foreign exchange earnings from tourism rose to USD 35.0 billion in 2024, up 8.8 per cent from 2023.23 This reflects the labour-intensive nature of this sector and its strong linkages with transport, hospitality, trade, and allied services.
The Survey, however, noted that India also has significant untapped potential in niche tourism segments.
India’s vast coastline offers scope to unlock the blue economy through modern marina infrastructure, it further highlighted. Marinas, the purpose-built harbours for recreational boats and yachts with moorings, fuel, maintenance, hospitality and water-based tourism facilities, are virtually absent in India, the Survey pointed out.
“The development of long-distance hiking trails, comparable to the Appalachian or Camino trails, can leverage India’s ecological diversity, cultural heritage, and existing pilgrimage, forest and river corridors. This can support sustainable livelihoods in remote regions through community-managed, eco-friendly infrastructure, such as micro-lodges or homestays, campsites with standalone green energy sources, clean sanitation facilities, GPS-enabled navigation systems, and rescue & evacuation facilities necessary in such remote locations,” the Survey stated.
As per the Survey, a national marina development policy that enables private players to run marinas under a transparent permit regime can support sailing, diving, and leisure cruising and this would help attract high-value tourism and international regatta events such as the Swan Cup National Regatta.