NEW DELHI: The government of India will has set its sights on a target of ten million tourist footfalls per year, more than double the current arrivals. Union Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai, while speaking at a tourism promotion event, said that the government was proactively working towards that figure, which he said was possible in the conceivable future. “India is a high potential tourist destination. We want to double the number of tourists coming here every year,” Sahai said adding that tourist inflows were one of the top priorities of the Government of India. “Currently, India gets about 5.7 million tourists annually, we want to double that as a target in the current five year plan,” Sahai said. India's planning commission releases a five-year plan every five years that spells out the government's spending thrust over the next five years over a range of economic sectors. He said that part of the plan already being put in place was the ‘visa-on-arrival' facility for tourists from more than a dozen countries and was seeking greater support from the hospitality sector to achieve the target. “We have started visa on arrival for 13-14 countries and have started working with them to facilitate flow of tourists to India,” Sahay said. Speaking of infrastructure, Sahai said that the country needs at least 20 million hotel rooms to cater to the inflow. “We need at least 20 million hotel rooms in India,” he added. It should be noted that tourism in India is being marred by images of dirty streets and unfriendly, greedy residents, which the government has been actively trying to correct through its ‘Incredible India campaign' that it has been promoting both within and outside the country.
