Overseas tourism industry eyeing India

Destinations such as Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Australia and South Africa are looking at Indians for the growth and success of their tourism sector.

India has, for long, been the destination on global tourists' bucket list. The rich culture, vibrant landscapes, diverse colours of different states and the centuries' old rich history have always attracted the entire spectrum of tourists from around the world to this land. To add to that, now other tourist destinations around the world are tapping India as a potential market of tourists.

Considering India's growing economy and immense population base along with the enthusiasm among Indians to travel and explore, destinations such as Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Australia and South Africa are continuing to look at India and Indians for the growth and success of their tourism sector.

With Chinese tourists MIA, for Thailand it's India all the way:

According to a report, in the absence of Chinese travellers on the global tourism front this year, the entire focus of all these destinations is totally on India. Isada Saovaros, director at Tourism Authority of Thailand's Mumbai office, was quoted as saying in the report that India has played a 'very important' role in the country's tourism recovery.

Thailand recorded about 11,651,284 foreign tourist arrivals from January 1 last year till December 29, and India topped the list of tourist arrivals by air. Malaysia was the top source market with 19,21,015 tourists and India was second with 9,57,452 travellers. Laos, Cambodia and Singapore contributed 83,727, 5,95,507 and 5,85,507 tourists respectively.

While the country is predicting an influx of around five million Chinese tourists this year, which is less than half the number that arrived in 2019, for Thailand India will remain its priority market. "Tourism authority of Thailand is devising appropriate strategies to delve deeper into the Indian market," Saovaros added.

India's appetite for tourism at all-time high: Australia

Australia is eyeing one million tourists from India by 2030 and expects the tourist numbers to reach the pre-Covid levels. "With efforts to increase connectivity and travel to Australia and facilitate the tourist visa process, we expect the visitation numbers to reach the pre-covid levels of 4,00,000 by June 2023, if not prior. Our long-term goal is to achieve one million tourists from India, by 2030," Nishant Kashikar, country manager, India and Gulf for Tourism Australia, was quoted as saying in the report.

India second largest visitor for Singapore

India has overtaken China in terms of visitors to Singapore and is now second only to Thailand. Before the pandemic hit the world and paralysed the tourism sector completely, China had the highest number of tourists visiting the island nation, as per an ANI report.

According to the Singapore Tourism Board, a total number of 612,300 tourists arrived from India to Singapore. Not only did Indians were the second largest visitor there, they also stayed the longest with an average stay of 8.61 days compared with an average of 5.19 days. In comparison, Indonesians stayed 4.66 days, Malaysians stayed for 4.28 days while Australians for 4.05 days.

Maximum number of tourists to Singapore were from Indonesia this year at 986,900 visitors while Malaysia stood third with 495,470 visitors, according to the report.

Indian tourists in Japan grew 40%

Japan has been seeing a steady growth in the number of visitors arriving there and opened its borders for Indian individual travellers in October last year. From people coming for business trips to clubbing leisure to their trips, Japan now wants families from India to visit too.

"Now, the number of Indian international travellers are speedily growing and will soon show substantial contribution to the tourist arrivals. So far, travellers to Japan have been business cum leisure but now our focus is to attract the couple and family segments from India," Yusuke Yamamoto, India head of Japan National Tourism Organization, was quoted as saying in an Economic Times report.

"Most Indians are usually first-time visitors to Japan and they visit major cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. However, now, we also want to promote other prefectures like Hokkaido in northern Japan and Tohoku (Northeast) and offer more variety," he added.

Travellers from India grew 40% month on month in November last year compared to October for Japan.

South Africa hopes for huge footfalls in 2023

India and South Africa, this year, mark the completion of 30 years of bilateral relationship and the latter is expecting a huge footfall from India given the number of enquiries coming their way.

According to the ET report, Neliswa Nkani, hub head, India, Middle East and South East Asia at South African Tourism stated in December that the tourism board had successfully surpassed its annual target of attracting 33,910 Indian arrivals to South Africa last year.