Indian inbound tourism is set to experience the biggest surge as the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) will become operational in October this year. The move to mobilize traveling for international visitors from
180 countries to India will boost the tourism in the country, Tourism Secretary Parvez Dewan said on Tuesday. “Travelling to India will be made easy once the ETA to visit the country becomes operational,” he said.“During the past year, India had considerably relaxed its visa regime and expanded the Visa-on-Arrival (VOA) scheme. As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the government has launched the VOA scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries, viz. Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore. The scheme was extended to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011,” said Parvez Dewan, secretary at the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) on the sidelines of the Incredible India Travel Bazar (IITB) in New Delhi.
ETA will allow international travelers to apply for a visa from their home country and receive the confirmation in five working days. The facility will not be not be available to eight countries which include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. Indian government has decided t give e-visa to all the 180 countries.
In the travel event IITB, speakers and organizers retained exclusive focus on inbound travel and have drawn 247 foreign tour operators this year. The buyers will engage in B2B interactions with 246 Indian sellers in 9,000 structured pre-fixed meetings.
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