Women tourists desert India after spate of attacks
Source: AFP |
April 2, 2013, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE number of foreign women tourists visiting India has dropped by 35 percent in the past three months following a spate of sex attacks that have made global headlines.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India found after a survey that overall tourist arrivals are down 25 percent year-on-year, with holidaymakers opting instead to visit other Asian countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.
The fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old Indian student by six men on a bus in New Delhi in December sparked outrage at the country's treatment of women. Since then there have also been other widely reported attacks. A Swiss cyclist was gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh last month, while a South Korean tourist was drugged and raped in the same state in January by the son of the owner of a hotel where she was staying.
Such incidents have "raised concerns about the safety of female travellers to the country," said D.S. Rawat, secretary general at ASSOCHAM, which surveyed 1,200 tour operators from different cities.
The figures contradict monthly estimates compiled by the Indian tourism ministry, which found an increase in tourists arriving in early 2013, although figures for March were not yet available. February saw arrivals increase by 1.6 percent compared with last year, according to the ministry, still far lower than the 7.9-percent growth logged in February 2012.
Gour Kanjilal, executive director of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, also questioned the scale of the drop in visitors reported by ASSOCHAM, but said some potential visitors had been in contact to discuss concerns. "There is a decline whenever any such incident takes place. Tourism becomes the first casualty," he said.
Travel advisories from various countries stressing the need for their citizens to take care in India has "further aggravated" the situation, ASSOCHAM claimed. It found nearly 72 percent of tour operators had a number of cancellations in the last three months, especially by female visitors from Canada, the US and Australia.
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