Indian arrivals rise 10%

International visitor arrivals to India continued to rise in October 2014.

According to the latest data from the country’s Ministry of Tourism, a total of 656,000 overseas visitors arrived in India last month – 9.7% more than the 598,000 recorded in October 2013.

Neighbouring Bangladesh remains the top visitor source market for India, accounting for 14.2% of the total monthly visits, followed by the USA (12.6%), UK (11.0%), Sri Lanka (3.7%) and Russia (3.6%).

And the number of people taking advantage of India’s visa-on-arrival scheme soared in October 2014, rising 41.5% to 2,705. This accounts for just less than half a percent of India’s total arrivals however, and India’s tourism industry will be keen for the government to push ahead with a planned expansion of the scheme cover almost all of the world’s countries.

India generated INR98.47 billion (US$1.6bn) in revenues from international tourists in October, up 13.9% year-on-year.

For the first 10 months of the year, India has now welcomed 5.84 million international visitors, up 7.8% compared to the same period last year. Tourism revenues increased 12.9% to INR970.07bn.

sourced:traveldailymedia