Indian tourism soaring high: Official

Despite adverse world economic conditions, India has registered a robust growth in foreign travel arrivals, a top Indian government official said here.

“Despite prevalent adverse world economic conditions and record high oil prices, foreign tourist arrivals in India recorded a robust growth of 10.4 per cent during January to August this year,” Tourism Secretary S Banerjee said in his address at the 57th Indian Travel Congress / Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) Convention here last night.

“There was a 26 per cent growth from Eastern Europe, 22 per cent growth from Australasia, 24 per cent from East Asia and 37 per cent from the Scandinavian countries,”he said.

 

Bannerjee informed the convention that in 2007, India was the second-largest investor in London, with foreign direct investment (FDI) of £52 billion.

British Ambassador for Overseas Business, Lord Swraj Paul, who was the guest of honour, said that he as co-chairman of the India-UK Round Table Conference, had played a key role in ensuring that the number of flights to India were increased from 19 in 2001-02 to 134 per week now, giving a boost to tourism.

Lord Swraj lauded the contribution of former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone in increasing the profile of Indians in the UK and also helping improve India-UK relations.

He also announced that a convention centre being built by his Caparo Group on a 24 acre land in Noida will be ready by next year. India’s High Commissioner to the UK, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, said that the link between London and New Delhi hardly needed to be elaborated and conveyed that Indians felt at home there.

He said that the rapid increase in the number of flights between India and the UK was a “visible link of the growing bilateral relations” and added that the travel industry played a major role in bringing people of the two countries together.

Referring to the issue of climate change and measures proposed to counter it, Banerjee said,“We need to deal cautiously with the concept of ‘tourist destination carbon foot-print’ that has been put forward. Such a measure needs to reflect the inherent carbon foot-print of a destination.”

“Environmental conditionalities should not be used as non-tariff barriers to the flow of tourism...if that happens, we need to consider its impact on employment and revenues.” He said a Global Conference on Responsible tourism for Inclusive Growth would be held in New Delhi in December this year.

Noting that India’s engagement with the UK has been historic and multi-faceted, Banerjee said,“India remains ranked in the top two global destinations and the UK continues in the top two source markets for in-bound tourists in India.”