India’s economy has been growing at a robust rate, enjoying an average annual gross domestic product (GDP) of 8.5% throughout the mid-2000s, while the country’s emerging middle class (around 300 million strong) – better educated and with a higher disposable income than previous generations – is fuelling the demand for everything from automobiles to holidays abroad.

Figures from the MOT show that in 2011, 14.2 million Indians travelled overseas, compared to only 4.5 million in 2001. The number of Indians who took holidays within their own country is even more impressive. In 2002, India registered around 270 million domestic tourists, but by 2011, that figure had surged to almost 851 million, generating the equivalent of US$79.31 billion.

Foreign tourist arrivals and expenditures represent a fraction of those figures. (As in many countries, domestic tourism is by far the largest sector of the travel and tourism industry.) In 2011, according to the MOT, India registered 6.29 million international arrivals (up from 5.08 million in 2007). Last year, foreign tourists generated US$16.6 billion in revenues.