Tourists arrivals on E-Tourist Visa spurts 635.8% in Dec 2015

India has registered a 635.8 per cent growth in tourist arrival on E-Tourist visa in December 2015 vis a vis the same period last year and UK leads the E-Visa tally followed by the USA and Russia, the Tourism ministry said. A total of 1,03,617 tourists arrived in India on e-Tourist Visa in December, 2015 as compared to 14,083 during the month of December, 2014 registering a growth of 635.8 per cent. UK continues to occupy top slot followed by USA and Russia Federation. Commencing from 27th November 2014 e-Tourist Visa facility is presently available for citizens of 113 countries arriving at 16 Airports in India. The Tourism ministry has said that This high growth may be attributed to introduction of e-Tourist Visa for 113 countries as against coverage of earlier ETA enabled TVoA scheme for 43 countries. The top ten source countries for availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during December, 2015 are UK (23.81%), USA (19.59%), Russian Fed. (9.33%), Australia (5.44%), Germany (4.86%), France (4.44%), Canada (4.40%), China (3.10%), Republic of Korea (1.83%) and Ukraine (1.67%). e percentage shares of top 10 ports in tourist arrivals on e-Tourist Visa during December, 2015 were New Delhi Airport (36.23%), Mumbai Airport (21.90%), Goa Airport (16.54%), Bengaluru Airport (5.54%), Kochi Airport (4.68%), Chennai Airport (4.21%), Kolkata Airport (2.74%), Hyderabad Airport (2.68%), Trivandrum Airport (2.05%) and Ahmedabad Airport (1.79%).