Even as the visa issuances made to foreigners and expats have increased, India's domestic tourism, too, is witnessing an upward trend.
Ministry of Tourism compiles data on tourist arrivals and tourist visits to all States and Union Territories (UTs) on the basis of details received from various sources namely Bureau of Immigration, home ministry or from state police.
Despite the demonetisation fears among foreign tourists visiting India, number of foreign tourists traveling to the country has increased by 6.8 per cent in 2016.
At the same time, growth in overall tourism numbers to domestic tourist destinations was reported to be 16.5 per cent higher over last year, it said.
"A similar higher growth rate is also observed in the Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs) during 2016, recording a marvellous growth rate of 15.5 per cent over 2015," a government statement said on Thursday.
The data referred for Domestic Tourist Visits (DTV) are compiled every year, by ministry of tourism based on inputs received from all states. These data were last released for the year 2013-14 in the year 2016 by the ministry.
The data, however, are still not complete and may not completely reflect the impact on tourism over demonetisation. The government said complete data for each calendar year was received in the ministry of tourism sometime around in the months of April-May of the succeeding year.
This time, the ministry of tourism has come out with provisional figures for DTVs on the basis of 'whatever information/ data' that was available so far by States/UTs and estimations undertaken by the ministry of tourism for the missing data segments.
"The estimation process basically entails the methods of prevailing growth rates and proportionate contributions," a ministry spokesperson said.
Salient features of the provisional figures for DTVs to States/ UTs during the year 2016:
- During 2016, the number of DTVs to the States/ UTs was 1653 million (provisional) as compared to 1432 million in 2015 registering a growth of 15.5 %.
- The contribution of the top ten States/ UTs during 2016 stands at about 84.2% to the total number of Domestic Tourist Visits as against 83.62% recorded in 2015.
- The top ten States in terms of number of DTVs (in millions), during 2016, were Tamil Nadu (344.3), Uttar Pradesh (229.6), Madhya Pradesh (184.7), Andhra Pradesh (158.5), Karnataka (129.8), Maharashtra (115.4), West Bengal (74.5), Telangana (71.5), Gujarat (42.8) and Rajasthan (41.5).
- Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have maintained the first and second rank respectively in terms of DTVs in 2016.
- Madhya Pradesh has gained several ranks to reach the third position leaving Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra at the succeeding fourth, fifth and sixth positions.
- West Bengal surpassed Telangana to attain the seventh position rendering Telangana at the eighth, followed by Gujarat and Rajasthan.
(Source: PIB)
