Despite the global economic slowdown and tourist advisories warning of terrorist activities in the country, the number of foreign tourists visiting India grew by over nine per cent last month, according to official figures.

In all, 33,0874 foreign tourists visited India during the month as compared to 301892 in 2007 and 297891 in 2006. Foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) thus grew by 9.6 per cent in September as compared to 1.3 per cent in 2007 as per figures released by the tourism ministry.

“Growth rate of FTAs worldwide has been 5 per cent in 2008 and the average growth rate of Asia Pacific has been 6.9 per cent. But India’s tourism sector has registered a growth of above 10 per cent in foreign tourist arrivals,” a senior tourism ministry official said.

Terming the latest figures as an “encouraging trend” for the tourism sector, tourism ministry officials said the total number of FTAs this year touched 3.87 million in September which is an increase of 10.4 per cent as compared to the previous year.

India’s foreign exchange earnings (FEE) from tourism sector in rupee terms have touched 36,464 crore during the same period with an increase of 17.8 per cent.

India continues to be a long duration and high spending destination for foreign travellers. The foreign exchange earnings per foreign traveller coming to India has been US $2112 in 2007 which is more than twice the foreign exchange earned per foreign traveller worldwide (US $948) as well as Asia Pacific (US $1027).

“Asian countries like China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand earn much less foreign exchange per foreign traveller as compared to India,” an official said. n SNS