NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu has bagged the top spot as the country’s most popular tourist destination among foreign and domestic tourists in 2016.

Uttar Pradesh has emerged as the second most popular destination among domestic tourists and third in foreign tourist visits. For foreign tourists , Maharashtra is the second most popular choice, after Tamil Nadu.

Surprisingly, Goa has failed to make it to the top 10 list of popular destinations for domestic tourists, but it has bagged the 9th place on foreign tourists’ popularity charts. Gujarat, despite its aggressive marketing campaigns, failed to impress enough foreign tourists. It is, however, the 9th most favoured holiday destination for domestic tourists.

Tourist arrival data, compiled by the Market Research Division of the ministry of tourism, also suggests 2016 was a happy year on the tourism front, where domestic tourism saw a 12.68% jump, while the foreign arrivals increased by 5.92%. The top ten states in terms of number of domestic tourist visits during 2016 were Tamil Nadu, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

The ministry’s survey also suggested the Top 10 performing states contributed to about 84.21% of the total domestic tourist visits during 2016.

India has improved its performance on the World Tourism Index, where, according to the latest UNWTO Barometer for March 2017, India’s ranking in international tourist arrivals in both 2014 and 2015 rose to 24 in comparison to its previous ranks of 41 and 40 in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The number of foreign tourist arrivals in May, 2017 were 6.30 lakh as compared to 5.27 lakh in the same period last year registering agrowth rate of 19.5%.

