Foreign tourist arrivals in India grew 1.7% to 3.54 lakhs in April compared to 3.48 lakhs in April 2009, despite the closure of the European air space for over a week, the Indian government has said.
“In spite of the closure of airspace in Europe due to volcanic eruption in Iceland, India registered a positive growth of 1.7% in foreign tourist arrivals in April 2010 over the same period in 2009,” the Indian Tourism Ministry has said in a statement.
It said the foreign tourist arrivals growth rate in April was lower than that of March 2010 (12.9%). It said arrivals in January-April 2010 was 19.18 lakhs with a growth of 10.6% compared to 17.35 lakhs and a negative growth of 11.7% during the same period of 2009.
The foreign exchange earnings in April was INR45.18 billion, up from INR40.61 billion in April 2009.
Meanwhile the rest of the world did not fare as well. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced international scheduled air traffic results for April 2010. Passenger demand slumped by 2.4% as a result of massive flight cancellations centred in Europe during the six days in April following the eruptions of an Icelandic volcano. The fall in traffic interrupted the industry’s recovery from the global financial crisis.
International scheduled cargo traffic, less impacted by the cancellations, saw the pace of its recovery slow to 25.2% growth in April (down from the 28.1% improvement recorded in March).
“The ash crisis knocked back the global recovery—impacting carriers in all regions. Last month, we were within 1% of pre-crisis traffic levels in 2008. In April, that was pushed back to 7%,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and CEO.
