So where are they? THE TOURISTS? THE INDIAN TOURISTS? THE FOREIGN TOURISTS

Fewer tourists are visiting India now. What's worse, our stand is we don't really care. by Vir Sanghvi on the Print YouTube page

2 minutes 38 seconds: "It's odd, isn't it? Tourism is booming all over the world."

Not really. It's a complicated situation, but I will let this slide. The only part of the world where tourism is legitimately booming as per UN data is, the Middle East

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Why Did Tourists Abandon Goa? | Can India's Travel Industry Bounce Back? | Akash Banerjee & Mohit on The Deshbhakt YouTube page

4 minutes 09 seconds: In 2019, 90 million tourists went to France

In 2023, there were 100 million tourists in France. Do you know why? Most of their tourists are from neighbouring Schengen area countries and of equal economic might. So, no visa is needed; you can make a day trip and return.

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Let me take a break from my thesis writing marathon to tell a little tale using available data.

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Let me put two numbers here

416074 and 355002

I will let you guess what they are, but keep them in mind. Recently, across social media and as a consequence of news media, news caught wind. Goa is seeing diminished tourism (the truth is until March 2025, we will not know the complete picture as data is yet to come). This has led to countless vlogs, social media keyboard wars and many opinion pieces. But I notice a few major argument strands.

1.????? Not as many foreign tourists are coming to India; instead, they will visit nearby South and South East Asian destinations.

So, is there any truth to this? Remember the two numbers I showed you above? They are the number of Indian tourists who have gone to Sri Lanka across the 12 months of 2024 (416074) and 2019 (355002). Let us, in fact, take foreign tourist arrivals in India similarly and compare them to our South Asian and ASEAN neighbours. As always, I will also provide links to the sources I have used for my data. I am taking January to October for 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2024, as that happens to be the latest period for which comparative data is available for India. And I wanted the comparison to be apples to apples in terms of data, at least.

Table 1: The South and South East Asian data compared

If you add the numbers for Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines and Vietnam from Jan to Oct 2019, compare them for the same period in 2024. There are 11 million fewer tourists, representing an almost 10.8% drop over 2019. So clearly, even 4 years post-COVID-19, South and South East Asia are still in recovery from the COVID-19 drop.

2.????? Indians are going to nearby SE Asian destinations instead of Indian destinations.

Alright, so let me use the same sample of nations and calculate the number of Indian tourists who have gone in the calendar year 2024 compared to 2019

Table 2: Indian tourists to nearby South and South East Asian nations

So yes, owing to many more Indians visiting other SE nations, SE countries have taken away some Indian tourists, and Indian tourism stakeholders have to pull up their socks. However, the curious mystery remains whether SE and South Asia, in general, have lost foreign tourists. Who have they lost? The answer to this question may lie in a large city next to the Dnieper/Dnipro in Europe and what it has gone through since 24th February 2022. The town is Kyiv, and we can't ignore two factors: inflation and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.

3.????? The COVID-19 effect and the loss of tourists owing to the Russo-Ukrainian war

So, let me provide data on only Russian, British, and American tourists to our group of nations. I shall update this as soon as I have India data.

Table 3: Russian, British and USA tourists to destinations in competition with India

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So, while the number of British tourists has remained relatively constant, the number of Russian and American tourists has decreased. There is ample research to prove that distance matters, so for the average European or American tourist, Asia is already pretty far. Add to that conflict and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis (essentially a lot more inflation than increase in wages), and you have people who really can’t pay and generally travelling closer by. The economic consequences of COVID and political conflicts are still ongoing as I write this (10th of January 2025) ?

There is one point made across all these videos I agree with. Indian tourism has a lot of potential. Our infrastructure is insufficient, there is a lack of hygiene and we have done a terrible job developing and promoting tourism destinations. There is a lack of ownership and responsibility at many destinations, and our domestic tourists exhibit some of the worst travel behaviours imaginable. Our tourist places are full of cartels of taxi operators and boat operators, you name it, who are known to overcharge tourists and argue incessantly.

In fact, this happened to me in Kashmir, where a dude followed me and expected me to pay him despite me saying I needed no horse. Only for me to say, Nah, I have a lot of experience with high altitude, and he still wanted money despite me saying I don't need a guide or something (but apart from this singular incident, Kashmiris were hospitable and sweet-spoken, most took a no for an answer rather quickly, unlike places in UP, trust me on this I am from UP)

But here's the thing. Trying to link Indian behavioural factors and government apathy, drawing conclusions based on social media posts, and not falling back on complex data is just passing a hot potato without analysing its temperature in the first place.

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And if someone shows you an empty beach in Goa, or empty mountains in a video or something. Allow me to present you two examples. Photos are taken by me only.

1.????? Kashmir winter (2024)

Photo 1: Why is Sonmarg so empty ? (This is a cropped photo, the power of DSLR's I tell you)

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Photo 2: It really isn’t. In fact, I was surprised by how many were there in temperatures as low as negative 4 during the day!

1.????? Pre COVID Andaman and Nicobar (2019)

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Photo 1: Pristine beauty of the Radhanagar Beach, look almost no one! (This is actually one end of the beach, and has a crocodile hazard sign)

Photo 2: Actual number of people that day well exceeded 400, it was December, Radhanagar is super popular and large so of course there will be! The photo cant capture how big the beach actually is

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I want Indian tourism to do well, because many lives depend on it. It contributes to national economic growth. But by just doing barebones reporting on it without taking data and history into context. All we are doing what Jean Baudrillard would call a “hyperreality”, something which for a fleeting moment appears more real than real. Sure content is great, but what we need is more substance and maturity. Here’s me hoping the best for all of you this year. Wishing all of you a Happy New Year 2025 to all of you !

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Sources for data

India - Annual Reports | Ministry of Tourism | Government of India

Sri Lanka - SLTDA | Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority

Singapore - DOS | SingStat Website - Tourism - Latest Data

Malaysia ?- Malaysia Tourism Statistics | Tourism Malaysia

Indonesia - ?Statistik Wisatawan Mancanegara | Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy

Thailand ?- ????????????????????????????????????????????? | Tourism Authority of Thailand

The Philippines - Department of Tourism-Philippines

Vietnam - Viet Nam National Authority of Tourism

?United Nations World Tourism Organization