Asia Turns Its Back On India? Why Tourists From The East No Longer Coming | World News

New Delhi: It is not just Chinese tourists who are missing from India’s airports, hotels and sightseeing circuits. Across East and Southeast Asia, a broader silence has settled in. The visitors who once came in steady numbers have not returned and this retreat predates COVID-19’s retreat.

Back in 2019, travellers from East Asia, excluding China, accounted for 4.1% of all foreign tourist arrivals in India. In 2023, that figure slid to just 3%. It is the lowest share in more than 10 years.

Southeast Asia has seen its own slow fade. After peaking at 9% in 2013 and hovering at around 8.5% through 2019, it too dropped to 8% last year. It was not a collapse, but a clear slide.

The drop becomes starker in absolute numbers. Tourists from Southeast Asia numbered 7.6 lakh in 2023. Four years earlier, in 2019, that figure stood at 9.3 lakh. That means India not only failed to recover from the pandemic shock, it fell below the average of 7.7 lakh arrivals logged annually between 2014 and 2018.

And the pull seems to have weakened across more than one region. Once a consistent and important source of tourist income for India, Middle Eastern travellers also seem to be staying away. The region sent just 3.5 lakh visitors in 2023. That was nearly 1 lakh fewer than in 2019. Their share in India’s inbound tourist pie now sits at 3.7%, a dip from the 4% range that held for most of the last decade.

India’s tourism story right now is not of one group missing, it is of a whole region stepping back. The distance grows even as South Asia rebounds.

South Asia in fact now dominates India’s inbound tourism more than ever. The region accounted for 22.1% of all tourist arrivals in 2014. By 2019, it rose to 30.9%. In 2023, it remained strong at 29%, thanks to the revival of short-haul and cross-border movement.

Other patterns are shifting too. Once dominant, Western Europe continues its slow decline. It made up nearly 29% of India’s foreign tourists in 2011. By 2023, that dropped to just over 20%.

But North America is rising sharply. From 17.1% in 2019, its share jumped to 21.8% last year. Even faraway Central and South America, long considered a niche market for Indian tourism, suddenly showed surprising momentum. Their share jumped from a stagnant 0.9% to a striking 5.6% in 2023.

What is striking in all this is that China’s absence alone does not explain the East and Southeast Asian dip. Countries like Japan, South Korea and the ASEAN economies are all sending fewer tourists to India. This is not temporary. The pattern suggests a deeper and long-brewing disengagement.

The implications are clear. India’s tourism is increasingly dependent on its neighbours in South Asia and long-haul travellers from the Americas. But the eastern flank, which once held promise, is slipping away. No major post-pandemic bounce. No surge after reopening. Just slow erosion.

The numbers speak with quiet force. Reopening to Chinese tourists is only step. Rebuilding trust, connectivity and relevance with the broader East Asian market will take much more. The problem began with COVID. And unless something changes, it will not end with a policy announcement either.

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