NEW DELHI: Data shared by government in Parliament shows that the number of foreigners arriving in India for medical purposes has seen a gradual rise post Covid.
While in the first year of the pandemic (2020) this number was over 1.8 lakh, it rose to 3.2 lakh in 2021 and further to 4.7 lakh in the following year, as per Bureau of Immigration data. In 2023, almost 6.6 lakh foreigners visited for medical purposes and provisional data for last year shows that the number of visitors in this category was 6.2 lakh.
Meanwhile, data on foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in India as a whole shows that close to 48 lakh tourists arrived in the first half of 2024 compared to 53 lakh in 2019. “Further, as per data from Bureau of Immigration and UNWTO Barometer, May 2024, FTAs in 2023 have recovered to 87.1% of pre-pandemic levels, closely aligning with the global recovery rate of 88.8% and surpassing the Asia-Pacific region’s recovery rate of 65.4%,” culture and tourism minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said.
He was responding to a question in Lok Sabha on whether government was aware that India recorded nearly 48 lakh FTAs in the first half of 2024, which is approximately 90% of the figure for the same period in 2019.
