Tourists in Feb ’18 up by 10.1 per cent over Feb ’17 : Govt Data

New Delhi, Mar 21 (KNN) Informing of positive trend in terms of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs), Ministry of Tourism informed that the growth rate in FTAs in February of 2018 grew at 10.1 per cent compared to the previous year.

The number of FTAs in February, 2018 was 10.53 lakh as compared to FTAs of 9.56 lakh in February, 2017 and 8.49 lakh in February, 2016, an official release said.

FTAs during the period January- February 2018 were 21.19 lakh with a growth of 9.2%, as compared to the FTAs of 19.40 lakh with a growth of 14.6% in January- February 2017 over January- February 2016, the release further added.

With regard to the countrywide breakdown, the government informed the percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during February 2018 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (18.28%) followed by USA (12.40%) and UK (11.75%).

FTAs flowing in from other countries included Canada (4.36%), Russian Federation (4.20%), France (3.24%), Malaysia (3.14%), Germany (3.04%), Sri Lanka (2.89%), Australia (2.65%), China (2.33%), Japan (2.09%), Thailand (1.92%), Afghanistan (1.65%) and Nepal (1.41%).

Earlier talking to KNN, Aashish Gupta, Consulting CEO of FAITH said tourism in the country comprises of heritage as well as adventure sports, the government must announce a slew of measures to promote the same in the country since it has huge potential both in terms of employment engagement as well as revenue.

He also urged the government to form a special corpus for promotion of the sector in the country. (With PIB Inputs) (KNN/DA)