Foreign tourist arrivals dip in India
August 12th, 2010 - 9:20 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) Foreign tourist arrivals dipped in India in 2009 but domestic tourism saw a surge with some 650 million people preferring to explore the country’s tourist spots, parliament was informed Thursday.
In a written reply, Minister of State for Tourism Sultan Ahmed said that the number of domestic tourists in 2008 and 2009 was 562.98 million and 650.04 million respectively.
He said the number of foreign tourists in India registered a decline of 3.3 percent as compared to 2008.
“This decline may be due to various reasons including the global financial slowdown, terrorist attacks, H1N1 pandemic,” the minister told the Rajya Sabha.
India received 5.37 million foreign tourists in 2008, around 5.7 percent more than the 5.08 million of the previous year.
In 2009, Tamil Nadu got the maximum number of tourists with 2.5 million foreigners visiting the state. It was followed by Delhi (1.9 million), and Uttar Pradesh (1.5 million).
Maharashtra came next with 1.9 million, West Bengal (1.1 million), Rajasthan (1 million), Andhra Pradesh (795,173), Kerala (548,737), Bihar (423,042) and Himachal Pradesh (400,583).
The northeast saw the least number of foreign tourists.
While Manipur received 337 visitors, Mizoram had 513. Nagaland got 1,423 tourists, Tripura 4,246, Meghalaya 4,522 and Sikkim hosted 17,730 tourists.
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- Nine states to discuss tourism promotion - Apr 20, 2011
- Taj to set up resort hotel near Shimla - Feb 18, 2011
- Tourist inflow to northeast rises - Dec 09, 2010
- Foreign tourist arrivals up 24 pc - Jul 18, 2011
- Helicopter taxi service launched in Himachal - Jan 29, 2011
- Agra saw seven lakh tourists in October - Nov 26, 2010
- Tourism gets mere nine percent hike in budget - Mar 16, 2012
- 'Clean India' campaign to boost tourism - Dec 20, 2011
- Kerala records rise in tourist arrivals - Jan 19, 2012
- In 2010, Goa received tourists twice its population - Feb 12, 2011
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