Why Chinese tourists prefer India less? Too many cows, too less public toilets, not safe…

Beijing, Jan 17: More and more Chinese are coming up as globe trotters but not many among them are considering India, the neighbouring country, as their destination.

According to a report in China's Global Times news website, when one enters "India" as a destination on search engine Fliggy, a travel service platform of Alibaba, it shows up several tours to India but not many of them are sold enough. India falls really behind when it is compared to other South-Asian nations like Thailand and Vietnam as a travel destination.

"... tours to Southeast Asian countries, including trips to the islands of Thailand or cities in Vietnam, are hot sellers on Fliggy. For example, a six-day trip to the Indonesian island of Bali had sold 165 times this month as of press time," the Times report said. Liang Xude, who has a business that helps with visa applications, said only one per cent of Chinese tourists who plan to travel to Southeast Asian nations is interested to visa India.

In 2018, 140 million Chinese tourists spent over $120 billion on overseas trips, revealed China Tourism Academy and India is trying to lure more of Chinese tourists. Times cited a report by Economic Times that came in August that India is revamping its tourism strategy in China aiming to see more footfalls from that country. It has also opened a full-fledged regional tourism office in China, planning to see 144 million tourists from the neighbouring country in the next five years.

But despite these efforts, Chinese tourists still refuse to see India as a top destination to visit, thanks to the latter's security and sanitation problems, the Times cited many Chinese as saying.

The news report spoke about an online travel agency member, according to whom the Chinese tourists are worried over reports that India have less public toilets and cow dungs are littered all over the places.

"I have to say that these reports about India are true, as Indians pay a lot of respect to cows. But many tourists travel by car, which means they would not step on the cow dung," the Times cited the member as saying.

Besides the sanitation problem, the news about rape cases that have gone viral online has also left an impression among the Chinese that India is not safe.

There are also Chinese tourists who have been to India and have said good things about their experience but it seems the negative publicity takes time to be erased.