Asia tops tourism visa openness index along with the Pacific

Asia ranked the highest on the Tourism Visa Openness Index along with the Pacific, according to the latest report released by the United Nations.

The report says Asia and the Pacific had the highest openness score of all world regions with 46 points.

The Tourism Visa Openness Index measures the degree to which destinations facilitate tourism and how open a country is in terms of visa facilitation for tourism purposes. The Index scores range from 0 to 100. The higher the score of the openness index, the more visas are facilitated.


India has a Tourism Visa Openness Index score of 38.14 per cent. China has a score of 0.64 per cent.

Meanwhile, the report says that visa on arrival policies are most common in East Africa (46 per cent), South Asia (38 per cent), South-East Asia (36 per cent) and West Africa (32 per cent).

Moreover, South Asia ranks high in the prevalence of eVisas. eVisa programs are common in West and East Africa (36 per cent) and South Asia (31 per cent), while North Africa, Central America, Northern, and Western Europe do not offer eVisas.

According to the report, 18 per cent of the world population can apply for eVisas, an increase from 3 per cent in 2013 and 7 per cent in 2018.

Last year in December, Malaysia introduced a plan to make it easier for tourists to visit and boost income. They waived visas for Chinese and Indian travellers from December 1, 2023, to December 31, 2024, and extended visa validity from three to six months.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has been monitoring the evolution of visa policies since 1963. Since 2008, data has been collected on a regular basis and consequently validated through surveys and communication with member states.