Skift Take
India's foreign exchange earnings are up. Travel spending per tourist is up. But international tourists in India are still lagging behind pre-Covid figures by 10%.
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For all the buzz around India tourism, arrivals from foreigners in the first six months of 2024 were underwhelming: just under 4.78 million. That's nearly 10% less than arrivals of 5.3 million in the same period in 2019.
Bangladesh emerged as the top source country for India, accounting for nearly 22% of visitors, according to the data released by the tourism ministry. The U.S., the UK, Canada, and Australia rounded out the top 5.
Those rankings could change when we see data for the second half of the year because of political unrest in Bangladesh, which led India to issue fewer visas.
Among the major source markets, the U.S. has seen the most significant growth. For years before the pandemic, the U.S. held about 13% share among source markets. However, this has now increased to nearly 18%.
Canada and Australia have added about a point in share, while the UK has held steady between 9% and 10%.
A report last week from credit ratings agency Crisil looked at the first seven months and it said foreign arrivals were at 96% of 2019 levels. But it noted an important area of improvement: foreign exchange earnings were up 23%.
“This suggests tourists are spending more during their visits, which can be linked to several factors, including a 20% rise in five-star hotel rates between 2019 and 2024, increasing tourist pref