Mumbai flood dampens tourism sector hopes

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New Delhi, Sept 6: The unprecedented deluge in Mumbai has hit the earnings of the tourism industry. Tourist inflow into India in August decelerated sharply to the year’s low of 6.9%, against a robust growth of 28.6% during the corresponding month last year. The earnings in dollar also slipped to 10.6%, against 40% in August 2004.

Despite the reverses witnessed during July and August, tourism ministry officials are hopeful that arrivals would cross the magical 5-million mark during 2005.

The officials told FE that tourist arrivals during August 2004 was very high, recording a growth of 28.6%, which is difficult to maintain. Foreign tourists, it may be recalled, have started moving in large numbers to Asian destinations after the Far East got rid of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) scare.

As far as the current year is concerned, officials pointed out that the Mumbai rain had a bearing on inflow of tourists. However, the comforting feature is that the growth rate did not turn negative in the aftermath of the rain and flood in Mumbai.

Mumbai, it may be recalled, suffered the worst rain and flood in living memory during July. Even Mumbai airport, which caters to the bulk of foreign tourist arrivals in India, remained inoperative for days as a result of flooding.

In July itself, the tourist arrival growth rate slipped to 7.3%, compared with 19.4% in the corresponding month last year. The growth in tourist inflow, it may be mentioned, was 16% a month earlier in May 2005.

During January-August period, around 2.38 million foreign tourists arrived in the country, recording a growth of 15.6% over the corresponding period in the last year. The officials expressed the hope that tourist arrivals would go up to 5 million in 2005 from about 3.27 million in 2004.