By Pushan Sharma, Director, Crisil Intelligence on Tourism sector
The global tourism industry, which was significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, returned to near normalcy in 2024. Worldwide, international tourist arrivals stood at 1.46 billion in 2024, which is 99.6% of the pre-pandemic, or 2019, level of 1.47 billion.However, even in 2025, India’s tourism sector is yet to reach those levels; foreign tourist arrivals in 9MCY2025 stood at 81% of 9MCY2019.Two reasons for this. One, if Bangladesh and China are excluded, foreign tourist arrivals to India were up 1.6% in 2024 over 2019. Second, the budget for overseas promotion and publicity for fiscal 2026 was set at just Rs 3 crore versus Rs 415 crore in fiscal 2019. Moreover, Rs137 crore was budgeted for domestic publicity and promotion for fiscal 2026. Increasing budgeted spends for overseas publicity back to fiscal 2019 levels would help improve arrivals and the share of tourism in India’s GDP as well, because jobs associated with tourism will also rise from 13.3% of total employment as of H1FY26.