Foreign Tourist Arrivals increase in 2017; this sector not hit adversely by GST

Union Minister KJ Alphons said in a statement in the Parliament that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA) did not have any adverse impact in the country. He further mentioned in a written reply to Lok Sabha that Foreign Tourist Arrivals in fact grew by 13.9 percent this year from July-November, in comparison to last year.

Alphons said, “The number of FTAs in India, during July-November 2017 was 41.16 lakh, as compared to the 36.14 lakh during July- November 2016, registering a double-digit growth of 13.9%. As such, no adverse impact of the GST implementation was seen in tourist arrivals.”

The Goods and Service Tax was introduced in India in July, 2017.
Until November of this year, foreign tourists coming into India did so mostly via the Delhi port. The other Indian city ports were Mumbai, Haridaspur, Chennai and Bengaluru. Union Minister Alphons also said in another separate query that the FTAs during the period of January to November this year were 90.1 lakh, while in 2016 there were 77.83 during the same period. This of course indicates to a 15.6 percent growth.

The foreign tourists coming into India were mostly from Bangladesh, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia.