WEF Tourism Rankings: India Jumps 12 Places, Breaks Into Top 40

The World Economic Forum has, for the past 11 years, engaged leaders in travel and tourism to carry out an in-depth analysis of the Travel and Tourism competitiveness of 136 economies across the world. The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index measures “the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the travel and tourism sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country”.

The index ranks the countries on various parameters. These are:

India’s rank on each of these is shown in the image below.

WEF report on India

“India is also one of the most improved nations, gaining 12 places to reach the 40th position globally. The country has seen continued growth in international arrivals over the past 15 years, reaching the 8 million mark in 2015. India continues to charm international tourists with its vast cultural and natural resources (9th and 24th, respectively), and its price competitiveness advantage (10th). India continues to enrich its cultural resources, protecting more cultural sites and intangible expressions through UNESCO World Heritage lists, and via a greater digital presence. International openness (55th, up 14 places), through stronger visa policies implementing both visas on arrival and e-visas, has enabled India to rise through the ranks. The T&T sector benefited from improvements in the country’s ground transport infrastructure, which has traditionally been a challenge (29th). Health conditions are improving, though they remain inadequate (104th). Similarly, ICT readiness (112th), security concerns (114th) and human resources (87th) are improving, but remain weak. While further improvements are needed across these dimensions, India is taking small but important steps in the right direction. The Indian T&T sector presents significant opportunities that are yet to be reaped, especially in the provision of tourist service infrastructure (110th), and in terms of additional accommodation cap.”

Read the full report here [PDF].