Largest TVAs issued to tourists from South Korea & Japan in September, 2014
As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the Government launched the “Visa on Arrival” (VoA) Scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries, viz. Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes. The Government extended this Scheme to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011. Recently Govt of India extended Visa on Arrival (VoA) Scheme for South Korea for which Ministry has started receiving data w.e.f 15th April 2014. The following are the important highlights of VoAs issued during September, 2014.
(i) During the month of September 2014, a total of 2,170 VoAs were issued under this Scheme as compared to 1,683 VoAs during the month of September 2013, showing an increase of 28.9%.
(ii) During January-September 2014, a total number of 19,290 VoAs were issued as compared to 13,859 VoA during corresponding period of 2013 showing an increase of 39.2%.
(iii) The number of VoAs issued under this scheme during September 2014 for nationals of the twelve countries were South Korea (530), Japan (496), Singapore (310), New Zealand (300), the Philippines (201), Indonesia (200), Finland (68), Vietnam (27), Myanmar (27), Cambodia (6) Laos (3) and Luxembourg (2) .
(iv) The number of VoAs issued under the Scheme, during January-September 2014 were Japan (3,950), South Korea (3,560), New Zealand (2,890), Singapore (2,682), the Philippines (2,527), Indonesia (2,225), Finland (760), Myanmar (293), Vietnam (196), Cambodia (99), Luxembourg (91) and Laos (17).
(v) During January-September 2014, the highest number of VoAs were issued at New Delhi airport (9,114) followed by Mumbai (3,636), Chennai (2,664), Bangalore (1,324), Kolkata (1,254), Kochi (614), Hyderabad (490) and Trivandrum (194).
Source: Government of India Ministry of Tourism
