Foreign tourist footfall yet to pick up in City Beautiful

Despite Chandigarh’s growing popularity among domestic travellers, the city continues to witness a relatively low influx of foreign tourists, according to data presented by the Ministry of Tourism in the Rajya Sabha today.

The data of the past six years revealed that while lakhs of Indian tourists visited the City Beautiful each year, the number of foreign visitors remained low.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, 15.63 lakh domestic tourists and 44,132 foreigners visited the city in 2019. However, travel restrictions during the pandemic caused a significant drop in the arrival of tourists. In 2020, the city saw only 4.17 lakh domestic and 12,218 foreign visitors. During the peak of the pandemic, the city witnessed the lowest inflow in 2021 — just 2.28 lakh domestic and 5,451 foreign tourists.

However, tourist arrival gradually revived in the following years. In 2022, the influx surged with 30.27 lakh domestic tourists. However, the number of foreign visitors still remained fewer, at 28,439. The following year saw a drastic drop, with only 3.65 lakh domestic tourists and 31,498 foreigners visiting the city.

In 2024, domestic tourism rebounded to some extent with 9.98 lakh domestic visitors arriving here. The number of foreign tourists also increasing to 39,058, the highest since the pandemic.

Tourism experts attributed the low foreign footfall to limited international connectivity and lack of aggressive global promotion of Chandigarh’s unique attractions, such as Le Corbusier’s architectural legacy, the Rock Garden, Sukhna Lake and Capitol Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site.