India Allows Visa-on-Arrival for 3 Countries - India Report

07.08.2024 - 07:16 / skift.com / Nirmala Sitharaman / Bulbul Dhawan

India now allows nationals from Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates to get a visa-on-arrival for tourism, business, conferences, and medical purposes. The visa will be valid for 60 days, and travelers will be able to visit India up to two times during that period. 

The facility is currently available at six airports: Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. 

India also offers e-visas with electronic travel authorization (ETA) to citizens from 167 countries for these four categories.  

International Travel to India: In 2023, more than 9.2 million foreign tourists visited India, up 44% from 2022, according to the government’s latest Economic Survey for 2023-24. However, this figure has still not recovered to the pre-pandemic figure of over 10.9 million in 2019. 

Last year, India earned INR 2.3 trillion ($27.5 billion) in foreign exchange through tourism. While this was 66% higher than 2022, according to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), international visitor spending last year was over 14% behind the 2019 levels. 

Small Steps: In the Indian budget announced last month, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the focus would be on making India a global destination. 

Perhaps to this end, last month, India made its e-tourist visa free for Malaysian nationals, allowing them to obtain a 30-day double entry e-tourist visa for free between July 1, 2024, till June 30 next year. India also issued a similar visa waiver for Thai passport holders till the end of 2024.

However, these are small steps to boost international tourism, along with India’s participation in international trade shows. Even with a goal to make India a global destination, the government made no change in the global promotion budget, which had been earlier reduced by 97% in the interim budget announced in February.

Hotel aggregator and operator Oyo has announced it plans to open 25 new hotels in India under its premium Sunday brand by March 2025. For its expansion, the company has decided on Gurgaon, Manesar, and Corbett as the next three locations. 

Launched in 2023, the Sunday brand is a joint venture between the Softbank Group and Oyo’s parent company Oravel Stays. Currently, three hotels across Jaipur, Vadodara, and Chandigarh are operational under Sunday. 

Oyo had started as a budget hotel aggregator, but has been moving towards premium offerings recently. Last year, the company launched premium hotels and resorts brand Palette, with the aim of having a total of 50 hotels under it by the second quarter of 2024. 

Oyo has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt over the years, with most of it going towards rapid expansion in different sectors of the business. The