The giant looking to become a tourism powerhouse (and it’s not China)

The now largest country in the world has already overtaken China in terms of population, and is now looking to compete with it in tourism, both in terms of Indian travelers visiting the region – and to a lesser extent, the rest of the world – as well as in encouraging other countries to arrive with more travelers to India.

When on April 24 of this year, the United Nations (UN) announced that India outmoded China As the most populous country in the world, it broke a record that the Asian giant had held since 1950, when the international entity began recording the number of people from each nation. But this is not the only objective sought by India. Now, the nation located in South Asia is also seeking to dethrone China in the tourism sector.

According to recent reports cited by CNN, by 2024, Indian citizens are expected to spend more than $42 billion a year on trips outside the country, which for Omri Morgenshtern, CEO of travel and booking site Agoda represents a tourist “boom”, he told the same media.

Morgenshtern also said that the Asian country is “the fastest growing outbound destination”, which is evidenced by the fact that India’s tourism sector is the fastest growing in the entire world. The statement refers not only to the number of travelers, but also to the monetary investment in the growth of the country’s airline industry, with figures reaching billions of dollars and which is said to be one of the reasons for the increase in figures.

Reuters reported that the government has plans to spend Rs 980,000 million, which translates to US$11,900 million on upgrading and building Indian airports between this year and 2025. .

A group of people visit Humayun’s Tomb, a 16th-century Mughal monument, in New Delhi in February 2022. Photo: AFP

New airports for India

official data from Indian Ministry of Tourism indicate that in February 2023, the country’s income in dollars from this element increased to 2,232 million dollars, returning to pre-pandemic figures and contrasting with the 571 million US dollars recorded in the same month, but in 2022. In 2019, meanwhile, and before the Covid-19 pandemic, $2,521 million entered the country in February.

To support the flow of travelers, one of the planned airports will become, at the time of its inauguration scheduled for 2024, the largest in all of Asia, details the newspaper. India time referring to Noida International Airport, located in Jewar. According to CNN, the site is expected to eventually improve connectivity between the National Capital Region of Delhi (NCR) and western Uttar Pradesh.

The same TV channel detailed that since 2017, at least 73 airports have started operations, while Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was included among the top 10 busiest international airports in the world for the first time thanks to 59 .5 million passengers who passed through its corridors. in 2022. The data must be nuanced, however, considering that China has kept its connection to the world closed for much of the year due to its strict Covid-zero policy.

Check-in Asia founder Gary Bowerman told CNN that “the work that (India) has done in the country is starting to pay off. It has more airports, more terminals and more infrastructure than ten years ago”. The phrase is reflected in another undeniable fact: in February this year, Air India made the largest purchase of new aircraft ever acquired in a single order by a single airline, taking 500 units.

A flight information board at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, August 2021. Photo: Reuters

The same company also increased the frequency of existing routes, widened its reach and added key destinations in Europe and the United States. He is not the only one to have made these extensions. the company of low cost Indigo added 174 new weekly flights, as well as six additional destinations to Africa and Asia, CNN detailed.

In part, this policy explains the changes in the top 10 countries visited by Indians. Figures published in January 2023 by the Ministry of Tourism show that the United Arab Emirates stands out by far among the first positions, with 26.57% of the flow. Saudi Arabia is second (11.54%) and close in third place is the United States (8.7%). But there are also destinations in Europe.

For Agoda’s Omri Morgenshtern, “If we look at a place like Europe, we see that more are going to France or Switzerland,” he told CNN. “These are two countries that were not in the top 10 destinations for Indians before the pandemic,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, Gary Bowerman said that although India has seen exponential growth in outbound tourism, it still has “maybe two decades” to catch up with China. However, the wait to overtake the Asian giant in population hasn’t happened overnight either.

Source: Latercera

Related articles

Comments

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share article

Latest articles

Newsletter

Subscribe to stay updated.