Falling Re keeps Indians away from China

The number of Indian tourists visiting mainland China, the world's third largest tourist destination with 135 million inbound travellers last year, is expected to rise only marginally this year owing to continuing slide of Rupee, a Chinese tourism official said.

"We expect only a marginal increase in the number of Indian visitors to mainland China this year at over 6.1 lakh. Last year, the number of Indians visiting mainland China stood at more than 6,06,500. But with the rupee on a downhill and the yuan on an upward spiral, we have to take this into account," said the China National Tourism Office.

The rupee has lost almost 4 percent since January this year against the dollar and nearly 28 per cent since last August, making foreign travel and imports costly.

According to the latest data provided by the Chinese Tourism, the number of Indians visiting their neighbour stood at 2,45,901 during the January-May period, an increase of just 0.72 percent over the same period last year.

In contrast, 57,319 Chinese tourists visited India during the same period, showing an increase of 22.8 percent over the corresponding months the previous year.

India usually ranks 13th to 15th among China's source markets for tourism, while the top source destinations for China are its neighbours South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The China National Tourism is targeting Indian cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata for its customers from India. While most of the Indians China for business purposes followed by leisure, the tourism board is keen to increase its promotional budget this year targetting Indian market.

"We are increasing our budget for the Indian market. This year we have a lot of promotional activities planned in India as we see large potential there," the official said without divulging the amount earmarked for the marketing activities.

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