IATO asks government to promote inbound tourism
IATO seeks government support to accelerate growth of foreign tourist arrivals in India
As the growth in foreign tourist arrivals in India continues to remain sluggish, India’s apex association of inbound tour operators, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has asked the government to initiate a number of measures to boost the tourist traffic.
In a press statement, IATO says that while there has been a rapid growth in domestic and outbound travel in and from India, little progress has been made in the number of foreign tourists arriving in the country.
The association attributed the stunted growth of foreign tourists to insufficient budgetary support for inbound tour operators, withdrawal of incentives for promotion in the key source markets like the United Kingdom, Canada, France and the United States, amongst others, and increasing competition from other countries easing their restrictions and implementing visa waivers.
The statement says that, in 2018 and 2019, India had registered 10.56 million and 10.93 million foreign tourist arrivals, respectively. But even two years after the reopening of borders, the number of foreign visitors to India remained far below the pre-pandemic era, at barely 9.23 million.
According to the President of IATO, Rajiv Mehra, in 2024, the body does not expect the number of foreign visitors in India to reach those of 2019, saying that at best a growth of 7-9 pc over 2019 levels can be hoped for.
The statement adds that the IATO has sought immediate government assistance to introduce measures such as resuming to overseas advertisements, electronic and print and road shows abroad, hiking the budget for promotions of India as a destination abroad to accelerate the poor growth of overseas visitors.
It has also urged the government to consider visa fee waivers for international travellers as according to the IATO, the resultant increase in numbers would easily offset the revenue lost in terms of visa fees.
