Five million foreign tourists visited India in 2007
Dubai: The number of foreign tourist arrivals in India in 2007 totalled five million, an increase of 12.4 percent from the previous year.
"We received five million foreign tourists in 2007 which indicates a 12.4 percent increase over 2006 and earned $11.62 billion from tourism," Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Kanti Singh said at a press conference in the course of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2008 here Wednesday.
"The growth trend continues in 2008," she said, adding that in 2004-05, tourism contributed 6.11 percent to India's gorss domestic product (GDP) and provided jobs amounting to 8.78 percent of the total employment generated in the country.
According to the minister, India has a healthy growth of inbound as well as outbound travel.
"In 2006, 8.34 million Indian tourists travelled to overseas destinations. It indicates excellent business opportunities for both inbound and outbound tour operators as well as tour operators in the receiving countries," Singh said.
The government was laying major thrust on infrastructure development of international standards around identified mega projects, she said.
IANS
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