Tourist arrivals in Northeast India still very low as compared to others

Despite all the promotions made by state governments and Centre to promote tourism in Northeast, statistics reveal that tourists visiting the region as compared to other states of the country are still very few.

According to the National Tourism Statistics 2022, the rankings of states of Northeast in domestic tourist visits as compared to other states of the country are almost at the bottom.

While Assam is ranked 23rd, Sikkim 25th, Tripura is ranked 30th, Meghalaya is ranked 31st, Arunachal Pradesh is ranked 33rd, Mizoram 34th, Manipur 35th and Nagaland 36th.

The number of domestic tourists visiting Meghalaya in 2021 as compared to 2020 has increased by a whopping 524 percent, Mizoram has recorded increase of 182.40 per cent, Assam has registered increase by 11.23 percent, Arunachal Pradesh by 140.06 per cent, Sikkim by 61.71 per cent, Nagaland by 118.31 percent with Manipur registering a decrease of 0.60 percent.

The top five states in domestic tourist visits in 2021 were Tamil Nadu (115.33 million), Uttar Pradesh (109.70 million), Andhra Pradesh (93.27 million), Karnataka (81.33 million) and Maharashtra (43.56) million) with their respective shares being 17.02%, 16.19%, 13.77%, 12% and 6.43%. These 5 States accounted for about 65.41% of the total domestic tourist visits in the country.

The situation is much more worse when it comes to foreign tourist arrivals with Assam at 27th ranking, Meghalaya is 31st and Arunachal Pradesh 33rd. Foreign tourist arrivals in the country declined due to Covid 19 situation.

Interestingly, only one foreign tourist arrival was recorded at the Guwahati airport in 2021, the report said quoting figures from Bureau of Immigration.

In respect of foreign tourist visits in 2020, the top 5 States/UTs were Punjab (0.3 million), Maharashtra (0.18 million), Delhi (0.1 million), Karnataka (0.072 million) and Kerala (0.06 million) with their respective shares being 29.22%, 17.60%, 9.50%, 6.87% and 5.74%. These 5 States/UTs accounted for about 68.95% of the total foreign tourist visits
to the States/UTs in the country.

Due to restriction related to COVID-19, the number of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during 2021 decreased to 1.52 million as compared to 2.74 million in 2020, registering a negative growth of 44.5%.

Tourism continues to play an important role as a foreign exchange earner for the country. In 2021, foreign exchange earnings (FEE) from tourism were US $ 8.797 billion as compared to US$ 6.959 billion in 2020, registering a positive growth of 26.4%.

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