- Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat highlighted India's booming domestic tourism sector.
- Domestic trips in India reached 300 crore in the past year, excluding Kumbh Mela visitors.
- The tourism sector remains resilient despite global conflicts, the minister stated.
Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has highlighted the growing strength of India's domestic tourism sector. Speaking today at the NDTV Ignite: The Future India Summit 2026, Mr Shekhawat pointed to the huge number of domestic trips being taken across India and said the trend continues to grow rapidly.
"In India, domestic travel increased exponentially," he said. Explaining the scale of travel within the country, the minister said the count includes all kinds of trips, whether for leisure, social events, weddings, medical needs, or other purposes.
"In the past one year, the number of people travelling domestically in India...it can be leisure, it can be social, it can be wedding, it can be medical, for any reason, if I go out of the house, for one day, if I stay out of the house, stay in a hotel and come back, it can be one day, it can be two days, it can be three days, and come back. The number of those trips is 300 crores," Shekhawat said.
He also clarified that the figure does not include travel linked to the recent Kumbh gathering. "It is not possible anywhere in the world that 300 crores of people have travelled. And in this 300 crores, 66 crores of Kumbh are not involved," he said.
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According to Mr Shekhawat, India's large domestic tourism base helps protect the sector from global uncertainties. "You talked about the Iran-America, Iran-Israel war. I have said before that any war has an impact. The impact of the Iran-West Asia crisis will also be there. The impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine will also be there. The impact of the energy crisis will also be there," he said.
"But then I will say that India is one of those fortunate countries whose domestic travel and tourism have such great power that it will not have any impact on our industry," the minister added.
Mr Shekhawat also compared India's tourism market with popular international destinations and argued that visitor length of stay offers a better picture than arrival numbers alone. He said, "The number of tourists who travel in India, although when we talk about figures, some say that there are more numbers in Thailand and Dubai. I tell them that those who come to Thailand stay for two nights and leave on the third day. Those who go to Dubai are weekend travellers."
Highlighting India's longer visitor stays, he added, "The traveller who comes from abroad in India stays for at least 10 days. The average stay is a minimum of 10 days. There are 2 crore people who come to India, but they stay for 10 days. That is 20 crore nights."
