New Delhi, June 10
China is emerging as a major East Asian tourist source market for India, with visitors from the country registering a whopping increase of 31.6 per cent in 2005 at 44,897 visitors, on the back of a 61 per cent rise in arrivals in 2004 (34,100) against the previous year’s (21,152).
From within South Asia, visitors from neighbouring Pakistan have seen a phenomenal rise during the three years ending 2005. While there was more than a five-fold increase in the number of Pakistani tourists visiting India in 2004 at 67,416 against 10,364 visitors in 2003. The upward trend continued in 2005 with visitor arrivals rising by 31 per cent to 88,609.
The emergence of China as a fast-growing tourist source market for India could be attributed to the intensive campaign launched by the Government of India to attract Chinese tourists and the large number of business delegations that have come from the provinces of China for business-to-business tie-ups.
Even so, India received barely 0.1 per cent of the total of Chinese who travelled worldwide in 2005. This, according to a FICCI analysis, could be ascribed to poor connectivity.
Therefore, FICCI argued for an increase in the number of direct international flights from the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Tianjin, Canton, Chongqing, Shenyang, Nanjing, Sian and Harbin to India. In addition, it is also important to increase the frequency of domestic flights between Buddhist sites like Bodhgaya and
Varanasi, it opines.
Moreover, FICCI has emphasised the need for a multi-entry visa to Buddhist tourists travelling on a circuit.
