How India Plans to Increase Tourism’s Share of the Economy

Prague is banning organised bar crawls in its ongoing mission to crack down on rowdy tourists.

While women have been traveling the world on their own for decades (centuries, really), a 2024 report from Booking.com reveals that solo travel is surging this year, in particular.The booking engine says 54 percent of women are embracing solo journeys.A separate report from Road Scholar, which offers educational travel for older adults, says up to 85 percent of the company’s tour participants that travel solo are women. These reports underscore what plenty of female travelers have long known: Solo women travelers are a force to be reckoned with. Write us off at your own peril.Within the travel industry itself, there are a number of high-profile solo female travelers who are constantly serving up an inspiring look at what it’s like to be a woman exploring the world boldly - doing so with comfort, ease, and a level sheer joy that’s contagious.So, rather than publish another staid round-up of destinations that might be worth considering if you’re a woman traveling alone, we asked a handful of these fearless, globetrotting women what their favorite destinations are to explore solo and why.Consider this your insider’s destination guide, curated by a handful of women who, collectively, have visited nearly every corner of the globe and have done so with abandon.

The Indian government is planning to invest INR 920 billion ($11 billion) in airport infrastructure. This fund will be used for construction of new airports and expansion of existing ones, India’s civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu said. 

Bengaluru’s hospitality market is buzzing as two hotel acquisition deals were finalized in the city over the past few days. The two deals amounted to INR 4.85 billion ($57.8 million). 

Maldives is now supporting payments through cards running on RuPay, India’s card payment network. The decision was announced this week after talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu.

The global tourism industry is bouncing back in 2024. International arrivals increased 16% between January and August, compared to 2023, according to travel intelligence firm ForwardKeys. The company’s insights, presented at the World Travel and Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Global Summit in Perth, highlighted the pivotal role of the Asia-Pacific region in driving this resurgence.

India wants to double cruise passenger traffic by 2029, and Indian Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, has launched the ‘Cruise Bharat Mission.’

China’s travel sector is making a strong comeback, following a challenging period during the pandemic.

Online travel agency MakeMyTrip and ICICI Bank have partnered to launch a premium co-branded travel credit card.

In this episode of the Skift India Travel Podcast, Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia is joined by Saniya Zanpure, research analyst at Skift, to explore India’s inbound tourism landscape. Last month, the Indian government announced initiatives aimed at boosting tourism, including offering 100,000 free visas. Despite surging outbound travel, inbound recovery has been slower, making these measures critical. Catch them discuss factors behind this disparity, such as safety concerns, visa issues, and infrastructure challenges, as well as untapped opportunities to enhance India’s appeal.    

On October 7, it will have been one year since Hamas attacked Israel. Egypt and Jordan, two of the countries neighboring the conflict, are still far from a full tourism recovery from American and European source markets.

Real estate services company JLL estimates that by the end of this year, hotel transactions in India will amount to a total of $413 million. Last year, the industry saw investments worth $401 million.