40 lakh foreign tourists visited India this year

Nearly 40 lakh foreign tourists visited the country this year leading to an earning of Rs 25,934 crore in foreign exchange, the Government said today. "As many as 3.88 million foreign tourist arrivals took place till November this year recording a 12.9 per cent increase over that of last year," Tourism Minister Ambika Soni said. Foreign exchange earning also grew by 16.9 per cent over that of last year, the Minister said. Replying to queries, Soni said with a view to ensuring effective marketing overseas, the Ministry has proposed opening of three new offices abroad in addition to 13 existing India tourism centres in foreign countries.

These offices are located in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, London, Dubai, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore, she said observing that series of promotional activities by these offices had contributed in significantly increasing tourist arrivals in the last three years. Soni said that focus was being laid on countries like Russia, China and the Latin American region to boost tourism. Giving details of the mechanism adopted to measure tourist arrivals, she said her Ministry was using satellite accounting system, sale of tickets and data received from its foreign offices, among others, for the purpose.

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