Foreign tourist arrivals records 7.4 percent growth

A compiled report on monthly estimates of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) and FTAs on e-Tourist Visa published by the Ministry of Tourism has highlighted a 7.4 percent surge in the number of FTAs in July 2017, as compared to July last year.

The report, which was prepared based on nationality-wise, port-wise data received from the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) noted that the number of FTAs in July, 2017 were 7.88 lakh as compared to FTAs of 7.34 lakh in July, 2016 and 6.28 lakh in July, 2015.

However, the report states that FTAs during the period January- July 2017 were 56.74 lakh, compared to 49.03 lakh FTAs in the corresponding time period last year, thus registering a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 15.7 percent.

Among the top number of FTAs, Bangladesh has emerged on top of the chart, with a share of 20.12 percent, followed by tourists from the United States of America (16.26 percent) and United Kingdom (10.88 percent).

The lowest number of FTAs was from Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with a share of 1.69 percent and 1.82 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, the percentage share of FTAs in terms of airports saw Delhi achieve the top spot with 25.95 percent, with Calicut Airport ranking lowest with a share of 0.73 percent.

With regards to FTAs arriving on e-Tourist Visas, the report highlighted that in July, 2017, a total of 1.19 lakh tourists arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 0.68 lakh in July last year, thus registering a growth of 73.3 percent YoY.

In the time period of January to July, 2017, 8.36 lakh tourists arrived on e-Tourist Visa, compared to 5.40 lakh in the corresponding period last year, achieving a YoY growth of 54.7 percent.

Once again, USA and UK achieved the top two spots in terms of countries availing e- Tourist Visa facilities in July 2017, with percentage shares of 12 and 12.9 respectively.

Similarly, Delhi airport bagged the highest percentage share of tourist arrivals on e-Tourist Visa (41 percent), the least share being that of Pune Airport (0.3 percent).