NEW DELHI: Indians can visit Thailand without a visa from November 10, 2023, to May 10, 2024, according to Thai Tourism, and stay there for upto 30 days. The country has now waived visa requirement for citizens of Indian and Taiwan in a bid to get more tourists from here. This September it had done so for Chinese nationals.
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For Indian globetrotters, this is the second such news within a week. Sri Lanka recently announced visa-free entry for visitors from seven countries, including India, China, and Russia, as part of a pilot project upto March 31, 2024.
Post Covid, Indian travellers are being wooed aggressively by tourism boards of several countries. India has been Thailand’s fourth largest source market for tourism so far this year with about 12 lakh arrivals after Malaysia, China and South Korea.
Indian government data shows the number of Indians travelling abroad constantly rose from 1.4 crore in 2011 to reach a peak of 2.7 crore in 2019. Then after two pandemic years of travel restrictions and closed orders, it again rebounded to 2.1 crore in 2022.
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Last year, Union tourism ministry dats shows the top 10 destination countries for Indians were — UAE (almost 59 lakh or 28%); Saudi Arabia (24 lakh / 11.5%); USA (17 lakh / 8%); Singapore (9.9 lakh / 4.7%); Thailand (9.3 lakh / 4.4%); UK (9.2 lakh / 4.3%); Qatar (8.7 lakh / 4.1%); Kuwait (8.3 lakh / 3.9%); Canada (7.7 lakh / 3.6%) and Oman (7.2 lakh / 3.4%). (All figures rounded off).
