Bengal bags 3rd spot in terms of foreign tourist arrival
Kolkata: Bengal has climbed up to the third spot in foreign tourist arrival (FTA) well ahead of BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. According to Tourism Statistics 2022 released by the Union Tourism Ministry, 10.4 lakh tourists have visited Bengal during the year, with 12.08 percentage share.
The only two states ahead of Bengal in terms of FTA are Gujarat and Maharashtra with 17.8 lakh and 15.1 lakh FTA respectively.
Delhi (union territory), Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Kerala, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh follow Bengal in this list.
In 2019, Bengal was in the fifth spot. Since the following two years — 2020 and 2021 — were hit by Covid, tourism across the country had suffered.
In 2019, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi were ahead of Bengal. In 2022, Bengal had edged out Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. In 2018, Bengal claimed the sixth place. “ With the able guidance of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the amount of personal interest and care she showers on West Bengal Tourism, we shall only rise higher and get better in the days to come,” Babul Supriyo, state Tourism minister said.
In terms of domestic tourist arrival, the state bagged the 8th position in 2022 with 84.54 million tourists arriving here with a percentage share of 4.88 per cent.
The West Bengal Tourism department had signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with FAITH for preparing a roadmap for further development of tourism in the state in April, 2022. Over the next eight years, the state Tourism department and FAITH will work together to develop Bengal as the number one tourism destination in the country.
FAITH is the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India.
The state Tourism department is also constantly upgrading its website to ensure state-of-the-art facilities to tourists and set up a user-friendly interface to welcome more influx of tourists in Bengal.
