India plans roadshow in China to attract travellers

India will conduct a road show in China to attract more tourists from that country which has the highest number of outbound people, Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons said today while announcing the schedule for the first India Tourism Mart.

Aiming to double the number of foreign tourist arrivals and receipts from it in the next three years, India will conduct a road show in China, along with other promotional activities.

Last year, India’s tourism industry did extremely well. The inbound tourists from abroad crossed 10 million and the ministry aiming at doubling this in three years. Recently road shows were conducted for promotion of tourism in US and the response was overwhelming. “Tourism ministry is trying to copy this success story in Russia and Nordic countries in next two weeks,” said the tourism minister K J Alphons.

“Now we are planning to conduct road shows in China, as it has the largest number of tourist outflow. Last year, it had 144 million outbound tourists, from that India got only 2.5 lakhs. So we are going to make moves to increase the numbers substantially,” said the Minister.

“For the first time, the foreign tourist arrivals in India crossed 10 million mark last year. Taken together with NRI visitors, the international tourist arrivals (FTA) were around 16.5 million,” he said.

“The growth of foreign tourist arrivals was 15.6 per cent over the previous year. Our receipts from Free Trade Area (FTA) went up by 20.8 per cent.”