India’s domestic tourism industry continued to surge in 2016, with inter-state visitation seeing double-digit growth.
A total of 1.61 billion domestic tourism trips were registered by India’s Ministry of Tourism in 2016, compared to 1.43bn in 2015, marking year-on-year growth of 12.7%.
The most popular states in terms of number of domestic tourist visits during 2016 were Tamil Nadu (343.8 million), Uttar Pradesh (211.7m), Andhra Pradesh (153.2m), Madhya Pradesh (150.5m) and Karnataka (129.8m). Maharashtra (116.5m), Telangana (95.2m), West Bengal (74.5m), Gujarat (42.3m) and Rajasthan (41.5m) completed the top 10.
These 10 states accounted for more than 84% of the total number of domestic tourist visits within India in 2016.
Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have maintained the top three rankings from 2015, while Madhya Pradesh overtook Karnataka into fourth place, with year-on-year growth of 93%.
Punjab (+50%) and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (+30%) also experienced strong growth rates in 2016.
