India's rank in the WEF Travel & Tourism Development Index | Fusion - WeRIndia

India has risen to 39th place on the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024, as global tourism activities return to pre-pandemic levels.

The annual report revealed this on Tuesday, showing significant improvements in India’s ranking since it was 54th in 2021. 

The US topped the list, while India holds the highest rank in South Asia and among lower-middle-income economies.

Spain, Japan, France, and Australia follow the US in the top five. And Germany ranked 6th.

The index, created with the University of Surrey, highlighted India’s strong price competitiveness and robust Air Transport, in addition to infrastructure. 

Additionally, India’s rich natural, cultural and non-leisure resources significantly boost travel, making it one of only three countries scoring in the top 10 for all resource pillars.

Despite some decline compared to 2019, India maintains a strong performance in travel and tourism demand sustainability. 

This is largely due to more sustainable long stays among inbound visitors. However, global inflationary trends have impacted travel and tourism enabling conditions in India, leading to a decline in price competitiveness. Air transport and tourist services infrastructure has not yet recovered to 2019 levels, resulting in India’s overall TTDI score being 2.1% below its 2019 level.

High-income economies in Europe and Asia-Pacific continue to lead the index. 

The Middle East saw the highest recovery rates in international tourist arrivals, exceeding 2019 levels by 20%. 

Europe, Africa, and the Americas all demonstrated strong recoveries of around 90% in 2023. 

The biennial index analyzed the travel and tourism sectors of 119 countries, considering various factors and policies.

The results highlighted that high-income economies generally have more favourable conditions for travel and tourism development. 

This advantage is due to conducive business environments, dynamic labour markets, open travel policies etc. 

Besides, other factors like strong transport and tourism infrastructure, and well-developed natural, cultural, and non-leisure attractions also contributed to this.

Image Credit: Destination8infinity, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Travel-and-Tourism-Fair-Jammu-and-Kashmir-India.JPG