India ranked 3rd amongst US key source markets globally between January and December 2021. The USA welcomed 433,305 Indians in 2021 marking a 29% rise from 2020, United States National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) stated in its latest released statistics.

When the U.S. borders reopened to international travellers on November 8, 2021, the number of Indian immediately shot up to 70,808 arrivals (compared to 17,701 in October 2021) and this continued to rise in December 2021 with 89,301 arrivals. The breakdown of travel reasons to the US for 2021 were: 55.4% leisure, 11.3% business travelers and 33.4% students, NTTO said.

Throughout the pandemic, the Brand USA India team continued to keep the travel trade and media informed. Through a series of webinars, travel trade briefings, market updates and one-to-one meetings on Brand USA’s virtual platform, Global Marketplace, Brand USA was able to provide timely communication to the Indian market.

“Even though travel came to an abrupt stop, we never stopped telling our destination stories,” Tom Garzilli, chief marketing officer, Brand USA commented. “For us, it was crucial to keep our U.S partners engaged with the Indian travel trade and media through our virtual platform, Global Marketplace. We are thrilled to see Indian travellers return to the U.S. in such high numbers.”

Overall, 4,000 individual agents were trained and educated on USA through the webinars and e-trainings and Indian travel agents have completed over 1,840 specialization badges (modules) online from 2021 to date.