Introduction of e-Tourists Visa for 113 nations has started bearing fruit with more than two lakh tourists arriving in the country using the facility during January to September, registering an increase of 945.6 per cent over the same period last year. last year, the e-Tourist visa facility was available for just 12 countries.
Highest number of tourists arriving on e-Tourist Visa was from USA during the period. The Government had launched Tourist Visa on Arrival (TVoA) enabled by Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), also known as e-Tourist Visa scheme last year in November.
At present e-Tourist Visa facility is available for citizens of 113 countries arriving at 16 airports in the country.
In the first ten months this year, a total of 2,01,705 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 19,290 over the same period last year while last month itself, a total of 31,729 tourist used the facility as compared to 2,170 during September last year.
This high growth may be attributed to introduction of e-Tourist Visa for 113 countries as against coverage of earlier TVoA scheme for 12 countries, said a senior official from the Tourism Ministry here on Friday.
With 18 per cent tourists using the facility, USA topped the list in availing the services during September followed by UK (9.24 per cent), Australia (8.50 per cent), Germany (7.22 per cent), China (6.36 per cent), France (5.22 per cent) and Canada (4.54 per cent) among others, the official added.
He also informed that foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) during January-September this year were 56.08 lakh showing a growth of 4.6% over the corresponding period last year.
The Percentage share of FTAs in India during September 2015 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (18.81 per cent), followed by USA (10.99 per cent), UK (7.96 per cent), Malaysia (4.72 per cent), Sri lanka (4.69 per cent), Australia (3.39%) and China (3.37 per cent) among other countries, the officer added.