The tourism industry in India is picking up once again after showing a considerable decline in wake of the global meltdown and the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, Union Tourism Minister Kumari Selja said during a review meeting in Chandigarh yesterday. “After a decline in foreign tourist arrivals up to 17.6 per cent during the first three months of the current financial year, as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, the month of May saw a decline of only 1.9 per cent as compared to May 2008,” she said in an interaction with media in the Union Territory.
The UNI reported that foreign tourist arrivals in May this year were 2, 95,124, which were almost at par with the figure of 3,00,840 during the same month in 2008, she added. During the past five years, foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in India increased from 2.73 million to 5.37 million. The foreign exchange earnings (FEE) from the tourism sector in 2008 were Rs 50,730 crore, an increase of 14.4 per cent over 2007. In 2008, the increase in FTA was 5.6 per cent over the previous year while the tourism arrivals worldwide grew at less than two per cent. |