Mumbai: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced visa on arrival for 150 countries as he tabled the first full year Union Budget 2015-2016.
Prime Minister Modi first announced VoA for United States at his speech at the Madison Square, during his maiden visit to the country.
Read: Implementation of visa on arrival: Tourist arrival up by 1,214 times
According to the tourism industry report that was released earlier this week, tourist arrival in India saw a jump of over 1000 times.
According to the tourism ministry data, a total of 25,023 tourists arrived in India in January this year using the VoA scheme as against 1903 in January last year. The percentage growth is said to be 1214.9 per cent, highest in recent times.
As of now, the VoA facility is operational at nine international airports including all four metropolis and Kochi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Trivandrum and Goa.
Read: Liquor permit on arrival at Vadodara, Bhuj airports to boost tourism
In addition to the VoA, Gujarat, an erstwhile dry state has taken additional efforts to give a boost to tourism.
In January this year, Gujarat decided to start issuing liquor permits to foreign as well as domestic travellers arriving at Vadodara and Bhuj airports in addition to Ahmedabad airport.
A total prohibition policy and liquor permit is issued to individuals only on the health ground.
Meanwhile, stocks of travel companies Cox &Kings and Thomas Cook India saw mixed trend.
Cox & Kings rose by 3.25 per cent to Rs 339, while Thomas Cook fell by 1.79 per cent to Rs 196.55 on the BSE following the VoA announcement.
