Visa on Arrival scheme registers over 22 per cent growth

Visa on Arrival (VOA) scheme continues to be popular with foreign tourists with as many as 1,062 availing the facility in June this year as compared to 864 during the same period last year, registering a growth of 22.9 per cent.
Maximum number of tourists from Japan (275) availed the VOA scheme followed by Indonesia (208), the Philippines (171), New Zealand (171) and Singapore (152).
The scheme, however, drew only three tourists from Luxembourg, four from Cambodia and five from Laos, according to the Tourism Ministry data.
As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the Government launched the scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries - Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes.

The scheme was extended to the citizens of six more countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011.
During January to June 2013, a total number of 9,328 VOAs were issued as compared to 6,721 issued during corresponding period of 2012 registering a growth of 38.8 per cent.