India is working to attract Japanese travellers, developing Buddhist circuit

As India is reaching new heights in tourism, the country is also looking to work on Buddhist tourism. This means attracting Buddhist countries, including Japan, in order to boost foreign tourist arrivals. Apart from organising International Buddhist conclave, India is also looking to develop Buddhist circuit that would connect important Buddhist sites in the country.

Suman Billa, Joint Secretary, Indian Ministry of Tourism said, "We are receiving a minuscule number of Buddhist tourists, just 0.005 percent of the total Buddhist population in the world, despite being a key pilgrimage destination for millions of practicing Buddhists around the world. The idea is, even if we are able to remove one zero and make it 0.05 percent, that'll still bring in billions of dollars into our tourism economy."
According to reports furnished by tourism ministry officials, five projects have been sanctioned by India, worth INR 3.61 billion.

Both India and Japan are looking to triple the number of Indian and Japanese tourists in the next five years, and have been pushing bilateral travel and tourism. Promoting Buddhist tourism is one of the many initiatives to tap into the Japanese travel industry. In fact, Japanese tourism office in Tokyo had sponsored visits of 10 Japanese tour operators, opinion leaders and even journalists. They had attended the International Buddhist Conclave in 2014.

In 2016, the Japanese tourist arrivals was at a total of 208,847, while the number stood at only 29,032 back in 1981.

The popular Buddhist sites in the country where Japanese tourists go are Nalanda, Kushinagar, Bodhgaya, Sarnath, Rajgir, Sanchi, Ajanta Caves, Dharamshala and Dhauli.