FEE from Tourism in 2007 11.62 billion dollars: Minister

New Delhi, Apr 29 (UNI) India earned an estimated 11.62 billion dollars foreign exchange from Tourism during 2007, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.

In a written reply, Minister of state for Tourism Kanti Singh said a new methodology has been adopted which uses latest provisionally revised estimates of Foreign Exchange Earnings from tourism available from the RBI.

It also uses Consumer Price Index (Urban Non-Manual Employees) in place of the Wholesale Price Index to adjust inflation, she added.

The Minister said the Reserve Bank of India gives preliminary quarterly estimates of FEE from the tourism with a time lag of 3 months and provisionally revised estimates with a time lag of about 6 months.

However, the Ministry prepares monthly advance estimates of FEE from tourism with a time lag of one week, she added.

''The ratio of FEE per visitor from countries other than Bangladesh and Pakistan was derived suing the FEE data from the RBI, but had not been updated using the latest estimates from the RBI,'' she said.

Ms Singh conceded that significant variation resulted between estimates of FEE from Tourism Ministry and the RBI.

Listing out steps taken by the Government to promote tourism and improve FEE, she said the Ministry is focusing on growth of hotel infrastructure, enhancing connectivity through augmentation of air capacity and improving road infrastructure to major tourist attractions.

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