NEW DELHI: An analysis conducted by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) revealed that the number of international travelers to India post-COVID has gone up to nearly one crore (2023-24), but the trend showed a decline of tourists coming from Canada and Bangladesh.
Based on the analysis, the MHA shared the data in its latest annual report, which highlighted that countries like the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia have shown resilience, with them showing an uptick in tourist numbers post-COVID. The number of people coming from Sri Lanka and Malaysia has also shown declining trends, it said.
According to the report the increase in visitors from Nepal and Singapore for the period between 2023 and 2024 reflected that, for many Asians, India happens to be a key tourist destination.
The MHA analysis has found that Nepal and Singapore have found a place in top 10 countries from where tourists are coming to India. Nepal accounted for 2,02,197 people coming to India and in case of Singapore the number was 2,00,708
It is, however, to be noted here that though foreign tourist traffic has significantly recovered, it still has not yet reached pre-COVID highs of the 2018-2019 levels.
The MHA in its report said, “In the 15-month period from January 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019, India welcomed a total of 1,37,30,282 foreign tourists, including 57,283 Pakistani nationals. The largest group of foreign visitors came from neighboring Bangladesh, with 28,76,064 tourists.”
The US and the UK followed closely, contributing 18,63,278 and 13,69,548 visitors, respectively. Other major contributors included Canada (4,79,228), Sri Lanka (4,51,736), Australia (4,44,033) and Malaysia (411,050).
Incidentally, these top 10 countries accounted for 65.61 percent of all foreign arrivals during this period, reflecting a diverse range of source countries, with neighbouring nations dominating the traffic.
According to the MHA data the post-pandemic period saw a marked recovery in India’s foreign tourism sector with a period between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 the country recorded 9,840,321 foreign tourist arrivals.
This represented a significant rebound from the pandemic lows, but still remained below the levels of pre-COVID. The total number of visitors from the top 10 source countries in 2023-24 accounted for 70.27 percent of the overall foreign arrivals, a slight increase from 65.61 percent in the pre-COVID period.