The tourism ministry has recorded 16.5 per cent growth in foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) in Januray 2017 compared to the same month last year, surpassing the previous year’s corresponding growth of 6.8 per cent. Correspondingly, there has been a growth of 72 per cent in the FTAs on e-Visa during January 2017 over January 2016, by registering a figure of 1.52 lakh as compared to 0.88 lakh in January 2016. The share of tourists availing e-Visa facility in January 2017 has reached a level of 15.5 per cent as against 10.4 per cent in January 2016.
During January 2017, the number of FTAs has been marked at 9.83 lakh as compared to 8.44 lakh in January 2016 and 7.91 lakh in January 2015. The USA led the percentage share among source countries with 15.01 per cent, followed by Bangladesh (14.91 per cent), the UK (11.11 per cent), Canada (4.63 per cent), Russia (4.46 per cent), Australia (3.65 per cent), Malaysia (3.15 per cent), Germany (2.92 per cent), France (2.89 per cent) and China (2.54 per cent), Sri Lanka (2.45 per cent), Japan (2.15 per cent), Afghanistan (1.84 per cent), Korea (1.61 per cent) and Nepal (1.60 per cent).
Whereas, the percentage share of FTAs among the top 15 ports was the highest at Delhi Airport (28.30 per cent), followed by Mumbai Airport (18.23 per cent), Haridaspur Land Checkpost (8.17 per cent), Chennai Airport (7.32 per cent), Goa Airport (6.51 per cent), Bengaluru Airport (5.32 per cent), Kolkata Airport (4.32 per cent), Kochi Airport (3.73 per cent), Ahmedabad Airport (3.37 per cent) and Hyderabad Airport (2.74 per cent), Gede Rail Land Checkpost (1.77 per cent), Trivandrum (1.62 per cent), Trichy Airport (1.38 per cent), Ghojadanga land checkpost (1.08 per cent) and Amritsar Airport (1.02 per cent).
The number of FTAs on e-Visa in January 2017 has been marked at 1.52 lakh as compared to 0.88 lakh during the month of January 2016 registering a growth of 72 per cent. The percentage share of top 15 source countries availing e-Visa facilities was led by the UK with 22.9 per cent, followed by the USA (13.6 per cent), Russia (8.3 per cent), China (6.3 per cent), France (5.6 per cent), Australia (4.4 per cent), Germany (4.1 per cent), Canada (3.6 per cent), Korea (3.2 per cent) and Ukraine (2.2 per cent), Netherlands (1.6 per cent), South Africa (1.4 per cent), Singapore (1.3 per cent), Malaysia (1.3 per cent) and Sweden (1.1 per cent).
The percentage share of top 15 ports in FTAs on e-Visa was topped by Delhi Airport (36.5 per cent), Mumbai Airport (20.5 per cent), Dabolim (Goa) Airport (16.2 per cent), Chennai Airport (seven per cent), Bengaluru Airport (5.1 per cent), Kochi Airport (4.2 per cent), Kolkata Airport (2.7per cent ), Trivandrum Airport (two per cent), Hyderabad Airport (two per cent) and Ahmedabad Airport (1.7 per cent), Amritsar Airport (0.8 per cent), Jaipur Airport (0.5 per cent), Tirchy Airport (0.4 per cent), Gaya Airport (0.2 per cent) and Lucknow Airport (0.1 per cent).
