More visa-free travel for Indians is good for Goa, too
India head of a destination-management multinational, his job used to be mostly about introducing global clients to exotic vacation spots in his own country. Nowadays, he spends nearly all of his time on taking rich compatriots abroad — for leisure, conferences, and, of course, big, fat, Indian weddings.
No surprise, then, that Malaysia’s recent scrapping of visa requirements for Indians and Chinese citizens visiting for 30 days or less has made Yadav a happy man.
The move follows similar decisions by Sri Lanka and Thailand. Yadav will soon organize a wedding with 250 Indian guests on the Vietnamese resort island of Phu Quoc, which doesn’t require visas for short stays.
All Asian economies that rely on tourism for jobs and incomes are pinning their hopes on their proximity to the world’s two most-populous nations.
The recovery in Chinese visitors’ global expenditure to its pre-Covid-19 level of $277 billion is taking longer than expected. Hence, the overture to the only other country with more than a billion people.
Visa-free entry is a carrot to expand the $28 billion that 27 million Indians spent overseas in 2019.
Those numbers had swelled eightfold and sixfold, respectively, in the two decades before the pandemic.
Easier and cheaper access to vacation venues in the region will no doubt expand choices for outbound Indian travelers. It may also benefit inbound traffic and domestic Indian tourism if some of the peak-season pressure on local hotspots — like Goa in December — gets diverted to rival destinations outside the country.
The hospitality industry in India has its hands full with domestic tourists.
