India to hold roadshow in China to attract more tourists: Alphons

India will hold a roadshow in China to attract more tourists from that country which has the highest number of outbound people, Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons said today while announcing the schedule for the first India Tourism Mart.

The minister said the Tourism Ministry is aiming to double the number of foreign tourist arrivals and receipts from it in the next three years.

Last year, India did "extremely well" in tourism, he said. After a successful roadshow to promote tourism in the US, the ministry is going to hold similar events in Russia and Nordic countries in next two weeks, he told a press conference.

"We are also going to have a big time roadshow in China because it has the biggest tourist outflow. Last year, it had 144 million outbound tourists. India got only 2.5 lakh of that so we are going to make moves so that the numbers go up dramatically," Alphons said.

For the first time, the foreign tourist arrivals in India crossed 10 million mark last year. Taken together with NRI visitors, the international tourist arrivals (FTA) were around 16.5 million, he said.

"The growth of foreign tourist arrivals was 15.6 per cent over the previous year. Our receipts from FTA went up by 20.8 per cent."