India’s foreign tourist arrivals rise 10.6% in August, led by Bangladesh rebound
Foreign tourist arrivals reached 691,000 in August, up 10.6% year on year. An 80% increase in Bangladeshi visitors and more than doubled Chinese arrivals signal stronger demand for hotels, airport retail, travel operators and destination-facing consumer businesses.
What happened
India tourism sector · India’s foreign tourist arrivals increased 10.6% year-on-year in August, led by an 80% rebound in Bangladeshi visitors and higher Chinese
Key facts
- Foreign tourist arrivals rose 10.6% year-on-year in August to 691,000 from 625,000
- Bangladesh arrivals rose 80% to more than 74,000
- US and UK arrivals grew 3%
- Canada, Germany, Malaysia and Sri Lanka arrivals grew 10-15%
- Chinese arrivals more than doubled to over 9,000
- 2025 arrivals declined over 9% year-on-year
- Bangladesh arrivals fell to 47,000 in 2025 from 175,000 in 2024
- India ranked 31st in the World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Development Index 2026, up nine places
Why this matters
Travel platforms, hotel groups and airport-commerce businesses should evaluate partnerships and acquisition targets that deepen distribution, payments and localized services for fast-recovering Bangladesh and China inbound corridors.
What to watch
- September-October foreign tourist arrival data and whether growth remains above 8-10% year on year.
- Bangladesh border conditions, visa policy, currency availability and political stability.
- China-India air connectivity, visa issuance volumes and group-tour policy changes.
- Hotel ADR and occupancy trends in gateway cities versus domestic leisure destinations.
- International air-seat capacity, load factors and airport retail sales per passenger.
- Foreign card, UPI cross-border and cash-exchange transaction volumes in tourist-heavy districts.
- Increase inventory, multilingual service staffing and digital-payment support at airport, border-city and destination retail locations.
- Prioritize Bangladesh-focused travel packages, cross-border payment acceptance and value-led hotel-plus-transport bundles.
- Use Chinese-arrival growth to test Mandarin-language merchandising, group-tour partnerships and premium gifting categories in major gateways.
- Monitor hotel occupancy and airline seat additions before committing to permanent capacity expansion.
- Target eastern gateway markets and religious, medical and leisure corridors where Bangladeshi visitor recovery is most likely to translate into spend.