Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh stood first with attracting more than 13.26 crore tourists in 2008, according to a survey released by the Union Ministry of Tourism.
Tourist turnout in Andhra Pradesh is 23.6 per cent of the domestic tourists in the country while Uttar Pradesh with around 12.48 crore (22.2 per cent) got second rank in the survey.
But interestingly, Madhya Pradesh stole the show. It ranked fifth in domestic tourism among the states in the country in 2008 and is fastly growing as an important tourism centre with almost double the inflow of tourists as compared to 2006.
As per information released by the Union Ministry of Tourism recently, Madhya Pradesh, which was on ninth place in domestic tourism in 2007 in the country, reached the fifth
rank in 2008 by moving up four notches in comparison to the previous year.
It attracted more than 2.20 crore tourist from the country in 2008 but in 2006, their number was around 1.10 crore showing that tourist inflow had doubled in a span of two years. In 2007, nearly 1.38 crore tourists came to the state from various parts of the country.
However, the next challenge for the Tourism Department in the state is to improve its foreign tourist visits in which Madhya Pradesh is still not among the top 10 performers in the country.
The state got ninth rank in 2004, 12th in 2005, 10th in 2006, 9th in 2007 and now it is in the fifth position in 2008 in domestic tourism in the country.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 14:38