India steps up campaign to attract Chinese tourists

In a bid to attract Chinese investments to improve tourism infrastructure, India today highlighted investment opportunities in its fast developing hospitality sector. It announced to revamp its tourism office here for drawing more tourists from China.

An official will soon be appointed to head the ‘Incredible India’ tourism office as the post was vacant for almost a year, Tourism Secretary Vinod Zutshi told PTI here from Shanghai, where he attended events conducted by his ministry along with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to highlight investment opportunities in India’s fast developing tourism sector.

India has stepped up its campaign to attract Chinese tourists by extending e-visas facility.

Special events were organised in Shanghai to scout for Chinese investments in India’s tourism sector and to campaign for more tourists’ arrival especially to the Buddhist Circuit which evoked considerable interest in China.

Zutshi invited Chinese investors and tourism officials to take part in the Incredible India investor tourism summit to be held from September 21-23 in which all the central and state tourism officials will take part with proposals for various projects.

Last year, over three lakh tourists visited India and officials said the numbers were steadily on the rise since the e-visa scheme was extended.

Besides looking to attract a chunk of Chinese tourists, whose numbers touched around 120 million last year, India is also looking to attract Chinese investments in the fast developing tourism infrastructure sector, Zutshi said.

Indian tourism is the fastest growing sector, registering a 10 per cent increase in foreign tourist arrivals so far this year, while the domestic tourism sector registered around 20 per cent increase, Zutshi added.