Number of Pak tourists to India on rise

A good number of Pakistanis are visiting India as tourists, despite ups and downs in bilateral relations, according to Tourism Ministry statistics.

In fact, the number of Pakistanis visiting tourist spots in the country is on the rise, according to the data.

While 83,426 Pak nationals came to India in 2006, their number rose to 106,283 in 2007. From Bangladesh, 480,240 tourists came to India in that year.

Interestingly, the number of Bangla and Pak tourists is more than that of those from West Asia or from China (88,103), South Korea (84,583), Indonesia (17,818), Singapore (92,908), Thailand (50,037) in 2007, the data says.

There was a slight decrease in the number of Bangladeshis travelling to India in 2007 as against 484,401 in 2006.

US remains at the top of chart with 799,062 tourists from the country coming to India in 2007 as against 696,739 in 2006.
From UK, India received 796,191 travellers in 2007, an increase of 8.4 per cent from the previous year.

The total number of foreign tourists during 2007 was 5.08 million as against 4.45 million in 2006, an increase of 14.3 per cent, the data says.

However, more Indians are going abroad as tourists than foreign tourists coming to India.

In 2007, a total of 9.78 million Indians visited foreign locations which was an increase of 17.3 per cent than the previous year.

The increase is steady since 1991 when India liberalised it economy. After registering a negative growth in outbound sector, the tourist outflow increased by 11.3 per cent in 1992.