Naik, the North Goa MP, told journalists at the Goa Tourism Pavilion that new initiatives including easing of visa rules, aggressive marketing initiatives, development of niche tourism products and use of technology coupled with mobile readiness would increase the inflow by the end of the current financial year.
“International tourist inflow to India has been growing at about 6 to 7% annually. Foreign tourist arrival in India during 2013 was about seven million with growth of 5.9% as compared to the year 2012. This year, till September 2014, there has been growth of 7.6% in foreign tourist arrivals,” he said.
Intensification of promotional and marketing strategies to further build brand “Incredible India” and translating of ministry’s promotional website www.incredibleindia.org in various international languages is one of many new initiatives undertaken by the Centre.
“The government has been encouraged by the good response to the visa on arrival scheme and plans to extend Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to the 12 countries. The countries that already have visa on arrival scheme include Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Finland, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Luxembourg,” the minister said.
He added that UK is more than just an important market for India as it remains the largest overseas source market. Tourists from UK accounted for 11.63% of the global visitors to India.
