Tamil Nadu top tourist draw for 2nd straight year

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu has topped the popularity charts for both domestic and foreign tourists for the second year in a row, beating Maharashtra and other favoured destinations like Goa and Kerala.

TN received 4.68 million foreign tourists in 2015, a tad higher than 4.66 million in 2014. Domestically, it continued its winning streak since 2013 with 333.5 million Indians visiting in 2015, according to tourism ministry data. "Tamil Nadu's rise as a top-ranker for Indian and foreign travellers is surprising and could possibly be attributed to Indians working and studying abroad and non-resident Indians coming to visit family and relatives," an industry source said.

Maharashtra came second with 4.41 million foreign tourists, thanks mainly to Mumbai's busy airport that acts as a gateway for India. Uttar Pradesh, with the famous Taj Mahal, attracted 3.1 million tourists and is in the third place while Delhi with 2.38 million foreign tourists came in fourth.

Others states that are in the top 10 included West Bengal (1.49 million), Rajasthan (1.48 million), Kerala (0.98 million), Bihar (0.92 million), Karnataka (0.64 million) and Goa (0.54 million).Goa returned to the top 10 after a year's gap.

The contribution of top 10 states was about 88.4 per cent to the total number of foreign tourist visits in the country during 2015.

Domestic tourists by far overshadowed foreign tourists' flow with 1432 million tourists in 2015 as compared to 1282 million in 2014, registering a growth of 11.63 per cent.

Besides Tamil Nadu, the top 10 states that Indians travelled to include Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana.