India is already suffering from a slow recovery in post-pandemic foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in the first half of 2024, even as outbound tourist arrivals from India surpassed pre-coronavirus levels. , the amount is still below 2019 levels. The subsequent political crisis in Bangladesh further slowed the recovery of the FTA.
reason? Bangladesh accounts for the largest chunk of India’s tourist pie, and the sharp decline in visitors from Bangladesh is having a negative impact on the overall FTA numbers. India has traditionally been a major destination for Bangladeshis, not only for shopping and leisure, but also especially for medical purposes.
Please consider this. In the first six months of 2024, FTA decreased by 9.8% compared to January-June 2019. However, by August this year, the gap with the 2019 response period had widened to 10.5%. Latest data available from the Ministry of Tourism. The number of FTAs from January to August this year was 61.9 million, compared to 69.15 million during the same period five years ago.
In contrast, the number of Indian nationals leaving the country in the eight months to August increased by 12% compared to the same period in 2019, to just over 2 billion.
Bureau of Immigration (BoI) data shows that FTAs from Bangladesh declined significantly in July and August, when the political crisis in Dhaka was at its peak. The crisis ultimately led to Sheikh Hasina resigning as prime minister and fleeing the country on August 5.
Bangladesh’s share in India’s foreign tourist arrivals (FTA)
According to BoI data recently presented in Parliament, FTAs from Bangladesh in July were 157,000, down 20.3% year-on-year, but the decline in August was even greater, with a decline of 38.1% year-on-year. 0.99 million cases. According to the Ministry of Tourism. From January to August 2024, FTA from Bangladesh decreased by 9.1% from the previous year to 1.286 million.
According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, Bangladesh’s share in India’s FTA was 20.8% in the January-August period, but it dropped significantly to 15.6% in August. In the first six months of 2024, Bangladesh’s share was 21.6 percent and in 2023 as a whole it was 22.3 percent.
FTA and Indian national departure data are released on a delayed basis, with August being the last month for Ministry of Tourism and BOI data to be published.
Apart from the Bangladesh effect, industry watchers believe the disconnect between foreign tourists to India and Indians traveling abroad is due to a combination of reasons, including curbs on tourist numbers from China. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, there has been a clear decline in the number of Chinese people traveling to India as there are no direct flights between India and China.
Delayed post-pandemic recovery in India’s FTAs
Another key factor is that other Asian countries are attracting more tourists by offering easier visa issuance and a more cost-effective proposition for tourists. These include several already popular countries in Southeast Asia and emerging destinations, particularly in Central Asia, that are rapidly growing as international tourism destinations.
“Countries such as Qatar, Dubai, Vietnam and Sri Lanka are attracting tourists with more affordable options and favorable visa policies. “In the first half of the current calendar, Qatar’s FTA increased by 47%, Dubai by 11%, Vietnam by 4% and Sri Lanka by 0.2%,” CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics said in a note. September.
It added that aggressive campaigns by emerging destinations such as Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan were competing for tourist spending.
In fact, the number of Indians traveling to such destinations has increased significantly in the post-pandemic period. In July, The Indian Express reported that the number of Indians traveling to Silk Road countries such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Georgia, as well as Southeast Asia’s newest tourist hotspot, Vietnam, was surging.
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