NEW DELHI: The number of Indian travellers to the US may have witnessed its first decline in the last eight years. About 11.14 lakh Indians went to the US in 2017, down 5% from 11.72 lakh in the previous year, according to the US department of commerce’s National Travel and Trade Office (NTTO) “forecast of international travellers to the US by origin countries”.The NTTO had in April temporarily suspended publication of overseas arrival “data due to anomalies in records received from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)”. As a result, the figures of international travellers to the US for 2017 were not known. On Wednesday, it released the forecast with figures for 2017, which showed a decline in the number of Indian travellers.Before this, 2009 saw 5.5 lakh Indian travellers to the US, which was a decline of 8% over the previous year. This was the time when the global slowdown had set in and travellers, including corporates, businessmen and individuals, were cutting down on costs with travel being the first casualty. But since then, Indian visitors were increasing every year till 2016.However, this may be a temporary blip. The NTTO forecasts an increase in the number of Indian travellers to the US from 2018 to 2022.Travel industry sources say the international travel from India is rising constantly at 10-12% for the last many years. “There has been a perception in recent times that travel to the US may have become more difficult, especially after some entry restrictions there for certain nationalities. However that is a wrong perception and for the right travellers, the US is as open as it always was,” said a Delhi-based travel agent, who did not want to be named.This, another travel agent said, is proven by the fact that US routinely issues 10-year validity, multiple entry visas to most Indian applicants under tourist (B1 and B2) category for a visa fee of about Rs 10,000-11,000. European countries, on the other hand, mostly issue very limited period visas or their visa charges are very high. “US wants multiple visits from the right people and therefore follow this policy, which has not changed. The fall in numbers in 2017 over 2016 is an aberration caused by unfounded fears,” said another travel agent.The US department of commerce, in a statement, said on Wednesday: “US welcomed nearly 7.7 crore international visitors into the country who collectively spent a record-setting $251.4 billion experiencing the US in 2017, a 2% increase when compared to 2016... The number of international travellers to the US rose 0.7 % in 2017 compared to the previous year. Growing markets were led by South Korea (+17.8%), Brazil (+11%), Argentina (+10%), Ireland (+9%) and Canada (+4.8 %).”