Story in numbers: Lockdown pushes tourism, hospitality to brink of collapse

Thus, foreign tourist arrivals in India, which saw a 9% decline in February 2020 (1.02 million) over January (1.12 million), and a 7% fall from February 2019 (1.09 million), further plummeted in March

The 21-day first phase of the nationwide lockdown from March 25 suspended domestic flights, trains and inter-state buses, and instructed all Indians to stay home. The government had already restricted foreign arrivals earlier in March, first suspending tourist visas and visa-free travel for those holding Overseas Citizen of India cards, then prohibiting arrivals from Covid-19 hotspots, and finally cancelling all international flight landings from March 22 — about 700 a week.

The government called for the suspension of all hospitality services with exceptions only for those who were accommodating tourists and people stranded because of the lockdown, and those designated as