Less than 30 lakh foreign tourists visited India in the year 2020, the Minister of Tourism reported in the Parliament

Harleen Kaur Grewal

New Delhi, February 2, 2021:  Less than 3 million foreign tourists visited India in 2020, due to travel restrictions imposed to control the Coronavirus pandemic. During this period, there was a decline of about 75 percent in the number of tourists compared to 2019. The central government gave its information in Parliament on Tuesday. Tourism Minister Prahlada Patel said that in 2019, the number of foreign tourists was 1.93 lakhs, in 2018 the number was 1.56 crores. For the first time in 2017, more than a crore of foreign tourists visited India in a year. That year the figure was 1.4 crore.

The Tourism Minister said during this time that last year, 26 lakh 80 thousand foreign tourists visited India and no formal study has been done to assess the loss of revenue from it. However, several rounds of discussions with industry people indicate large-scale loss of revenue, foreign exchange, and jobs. This area is highly unorganized. He said that the Market Development Assistance (MDA) scheme has been revised to promote domestic tourism and provide financial support to the stakeholders, so as to provide maximum benefits to them.

Tourism Minister Prahlada Patel further explained that apart from this, several steps have been taken to promote tourism. This includes online promotion. At the same time, the limit of financial support has been increased. He also said that during this time that the tourism departments of the states and union territories are also eligible for financial assistance under this scheme. In order to stop the spread of the corona pandemic in the country, the movement of passengers from abroad had to be stopped last year. Apart from this, a lockdown was imposed in the country, causing heavy losses to other sectors including tourism.