Foreign tourist inflow into India has registered a significant drop of 25 per cent in the last three months of the year in the wake of rape incidents, according to a survey undertaken by Assocham Social Development Foundation (ASDF).
Nearly 72 per cent of the tour operators surveyed said several bookings had been cancelled, especially from foreign women tourists in the last three months, mainly from the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Assocham surveyed 1,200 tour operators from different cities. They attributed the drop in tourists to safety and security problems and the global economic slowdown.
ASSOCHAM Secretary General D. S. Rawat said the industry has primarily been affected due to deteriorating standards of safety and security. Other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam are the destinations of choice now. Further aggravating the situation are advisories issued by various countries to their citizens to avoid visiting India and to be cautious if they visit.
Women tourists inflow down 35%
The survey highlights that from December 2012 onwards the inflow of women tourists into the country has gone down by 35 per cent and that overall tourism has been affected by 25 per cent. Rawat said that last year over six lakh tourists had visited various tourist destinations such as Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, the Kashmir valley, Goa, Mysore and Thiruvananthapuram in the winter.
The survey found that tourism has suffered the most in Delhi-NCR followed by other tier-II and tier-III destinations such as Goa, Agra and Jaipur.
According to Tourism Ministry data, in 2012 about 6.6 million international tourists visited India and the country earned $17.74 billion.
The Ministry has set the goal of increasing foreign tourist arrivals by 12 per cent a year so as to double foreign exchange earnings by 2016.