India is emerging as the future growth engine for global tourism. Government data shows Indian tourists have spent $3.17 billion so far on overseas trips. Given that only 92 million Indians have passports and India still has more outbound travel than the whole of South East Asia. This has made it an essential market in the world, especially for Asian countries.
How are other countries attracting Indian tourists?
It is estimated that by 2040, Indian travelers will make 80 to 90 million trips every year, making India the largest source market for outbound travel. To take advantage of this market, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and other Asian countries are attracting Indian tourists. In this, along with sport and adventure tourism, destination wedding, shooting of Bollywood and Tollywood films along with flying and cruise tourism are being created.
Asian countries keep an eye on destination wedding of Indians
Mumbai One World Travel Market (OTM) conference was organized to promote the tourism industry at the overseas level. In which 60 countries participated. Chairman of Malaysia Tourism Department, Manoharan Periyasamy said that in the present times, India is an essential tourism market for us and we are emphasizing on strengthening our position in this market. We are focusing on destination weddings along with new tourist destinations, sport and adventure tourism to attract Indian tourists. Because Indian weddings are about five days long and cost more money. For this, we are expanding such beautiful and new places in Malaysia, which are suitable for destination weddings. We are building an ecosystem that caters to the wedding needs of Indians. In this, both Malaysia Tourism Department and Sri Lanka Tourism Department are creating an ecosystem to handle Indian weddings. In which the attractive places for destination weddings are being expanded, while on the other hand, it also includes catering services for pure vegetarian food for Indian tourists.
Malaysia to receive over one million Indian visitors in 2024
Manoharan says, after the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in travel by Indian tourists to Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bali. Earlier, tourists from European countries used to visit Asian countries the most, but now the number of Indian tourists has increased rapidly. In 2024, Malaysia is expected to receive over 1 million Indian visitors, showing a 47 per cent increase following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sri Lanka Tourism Department will expand the places related to Ramayana
Deputy Minister of Sri Lanka Tourism Department, Prof. Ruwan Ranasinghe said, Sri Lanka, recovering from the recent economic crisis, faced many challenges in the tourism sector. Praised the India-Sri Lanka agreement. He said that India dominates the tourism market of Sri Lanka. Which helps us in developing tourism that meets Indian needs. Pro. Ruwan said that Sri Lanka is developing a Ramayana Trail, which includes 20 places related to Ramayana especially for Indian tourists. Data from the Indian Tourism Ministry shows that by November 2025, more than 4.43 lakh Indian tourists have visited Sri Lanka this year, which is 22.5 percent of the total tourist arrivals.
Easy policy for shooting Indian films
Pro. Ruwan said that we are making the policy easier for shooting Indian films. In which if Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood want to shoot in Sri Lanka, then our government has expedited the approval process for the filmmakers in 7 days. He said that we are creating more Indian restaurants in Sri Lanka, this will directly improve the number of Indian travelers because availability of food is something that Indians look for. It will also promote adventure tourism and long weekend tourism.
Focus on sports, adventure, flying and cruise tourism for youth
According to the Tourism Department of Singapore, the number of Indian tourists has increased rapidly, in which the youth group is more. Therefore, to attract these young tourists, we are expanding areas like sports, adventure, safari with new tourist destinations. Manoharan says, there has been a change in the behavior of Indian tourists, they now prefer experiential tourism rather than site seeing. For this, we are promoting adventure, sports tourism, hiking, trailing, cycling and athletic tourism. Besides, flying and cruise tourism is also being expanded. Soon a special visa scheme will be implemented which will ease the travel of Indian tourists.
