India receives 5.58 million tourists in 2010

New Delhi: The Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during 2010 were 5.58 million with a growth rate of 9.3pc as compared to the FTAs of 5.11 million and growth rate of (-) 3.3pc during 2009.

The 9.3pc growth rate in FTAs for 2010 over 2009 for India is much better than UNWTO’s projected growth rate of 5pc to 6pc for the world during the same period.

Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEE) from tourism during 2010 were US$ 14193 million as compared to US$ 11,394 million during 2009 and US$ 11,747 million during 2008.

The growth rate in FEE in US$ terms during 2010 was 24.6pc as compared to a decline of 3pc in 2009 over 2008. Therefore, in US$ terms, also growth rate observed in 2010 was positive and substantially high.

During 2010, a total number of 6549 Visa on Arrivals (VoA) were issued under VoA Scheme.

The Scheme of “Visa on Arrival” (VoA) was introduced from 1 January 2010 for citizens of five countries, viz. Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes.

The number of visas issued under this scheme, during January-December 2010 for nationals of the five countries were Singapore (1814), New Zealand (1944), Japan (1457), Finland (1263) and Luxembourg (71).

Total number of VoAs issued during December, 2010 were 905 with country-wise breakup as Finland (140), Japan (216), New Zealand (340), Singapore (191) and Luxemburg (18).

During the year 2010 (January-December), the maximum number of VoAs were issued at Delhi airport (3493), followed by Mumbai (1511), Chennai (1211) and Kolkata (334).