Tourism in India - visa-on-arrival to boost tourism

The tourism industry in India is awaiting a revival because it received only 6.58 million tourists in 2012 which is very low a figure as compared to other Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia. Hence, the Ministry has extended the concept of visa-on-arrival to countries like the US, Australia, Brazil, Germany and Japan. Tourists from these countries can now avail of this visa-on-arrival in India.
Actually, visitors from 43 countries no longer need to queue up at local consulates, but can instead apply for them online and collect the visas at airports. This scheme will be available at nine major airports in India.
Till now, India offered visa-on-arrival to visitors from only 12 countries and others had to undergo a long waiting period before they could now whether they would be allowed to enter India after submitting their applications at visa processing centers.
In the opinion of tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma, the change would be boost to the tourism industry. But, it has to be agreed that unless there are better infrastructure like communication and hotels and unless the mindset of Indians change as a whole, unless they stop eve-teasing, it would be difficult to achieve the goal.
There have been innumerable instances of tourists falling in the traps of unscrupulous elements and leaving the country with a bad impression that gets talked about on social networking websites. That is certainly not desirable for tourism. Hence, if the minister of tourism wants full satisfaction, he would have to coordinate with other ministries to streamline the whole setup so that the tourist feels at home and carries back with him a good impression.
Incidentally, boosting tourism is on the agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.