‘Dollar inflows from inbound travel tripled but shy of full recovery over 2019’

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Dollar revenues from the travel industry have tripled over the last fiscal year to $26.17 billion in FY23, but is still short of 2019 levels. Data from Services Export Promotion Council, that operates under the commerce and industry ministry, showed that while inbound business travel was a laggard, down 60% from the pre-covid levels at $1.17 billion, personal travel, too, was 10% lower. Barring business-related travel, the remaining categories, such as healthcare and education, has had a negligible impact on dollar inflows, but outflows were marginally higher than inflows at $27.11 billion for FY23.

Likewise, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India, travel imports fell by approximately 12.5% in FY23 to $24.8 billion compared to FY19 figures, while outbound dollars or travel export increased significantly by 27% to $27.6 billion. Consequently, in FY23 the travel sector was a negative contributor to dollar revenues (-$2.8 billion) from being a net positive contributor in FY19 ($6.7 billion). According to industry insiders a possible reason for tourism not reaching full recovery is that the budget for overseas promotional activities such as Incredible India was slashed to less than one-third this year’s budget to ₹167 crore from ₹525 crore two years ago.

Sunil Talati, chairman, Services Export Promotion Council, said travel is steadily growing. “There are new opportunities in tourism, connected to medical value tourism, healthcare and logistics, among others. We are working on promoting the Indian tourism and hospitality sector," he added.