Foreign tourist arrivals in India: Americans no 1

New Delhi, July 5 (PTI) The US remained on top as the
source country of foreign tourist arrivals in India in 2009.

While the US was closely followed by the UK, the
neighbouring country Bangladesh occupied a distant third
position among top 15 source countries from where the maximum
number of tourists came to India last year.
Nepal also entered the top 15 league as 87,487 visitors
from the Himalyan nation visited India during the slowdown
period in 2009, according to the data prepared by the Tourism
Ministry.
In 2009, out of total 51,08,579 foreigners who visited
the country, 8,03,021 tourists were from the US. The number of
Americans (8,04,933) among foreign tourists was also the
maximum in 2008.
The US was followed by the UK with 7,48,765 visitors who
came to India in 2009.
India received 4,58,063 tourists from Bangladesh followed
by Sri Lanka (2,40,836), Canada (2,21,448) and France
(1,95,307). There were 96,997 visitors from China.
Others in the top 15 source countries are Germany
(1,93,557), Australia (1,48,846), Malayasia (1,34,340) and
Japan (1,24,219).
The tourist sector witnessed a bad year all over the
world in 2009 and the foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) in India
during 2009 were 5.11 million as compared to 5.28 million in
2008, registering a fall of 3.3 per cent.
The share of top 15 countries was almost same (72.9 per
cent) in 2009 as compared to 72.6 per cent in 2008.
However, there was growth in FTAs in some regions
including Africa (17 per cent), Central and South America (9.6
per cent) and South East Asia (4.7 per cent). PTI ARU
MYR