4.45 lakh eTV tourist arrivals in 2015

During January-December 2015, a total of 4,45,300 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa (eTV) as compared to 39,046 during the same period in 2014 registering a growth of 1040.4 per cent. In December 2015, a total of 1,03,617 tourist arrived in India on eTV, registering a growth of 635.8 per cent growth over December 2014. The high growth may be attributed to introduction of eTV for 113 countries as against the coverage of the earlier ETA enabled TVoA scheme for 43 countries. Among the countries availing eTV, UK continues to occupy the top slot followed by the U.S and Russia where the percentage shares of the top five source countries were UK (23.81%), USA (19.59%), Russian Federation (9.33%), Australia (5.44%) and Germany (4.86%) respectively. The percentage shares of the top five ports in tourist arrivals on eTV during December 2015 were New Delhi Airport (36.23%) followed by Mumbai Airport (21.90%), Goa Airport (16.54%), Bengaluru Airport (5.54%) and Kochi Airport (4.68%).