Niti Aayog Wants Simplified Visas to Boost Tourism
Niti Aayog proposes visa-on-arrival, simplified e-visa categories and stronger digital systems to boost inbound tourism and help states like Telangana revive foreign tourist arrivals
Hyderabad: Niti Aayog has proposed liberalising and streamlining India’s visa regime to boost inbound tourism, recommending a phased shift to a tourist visa-on-arrival (VoA)-led framework with a 90-day, multiple-entry facility for select countries.
In its report, “Unlocking Growth in Tourism and Hospitality Sector,” the national advisory body said easing entry rules would act as a high-impact demand lever to convert travel intent into actual visits.
It also called for rationalising e-visa categories into broader classes — tourism, business, short-term medical, short-term student and dependents — alongside strengthening digital and payment infrastructure through real-time verification, global payment integration and biometric checks. Measures to improve visitor retention, including loyalty programmes and a tourist refund scheme, were also recommended.
The report said restrictive visa requirements depress inbound travel, citing research indicating reductions of up to 70 per cent. It noted that visa liberalisation and facilitative measures such as E-Visas and VoA have increased arrivals in other markets.
Between 2008 and 2023, global pre-departure visa requirements declined from about 77 to 47 per cent, while e-visa usage rose sixfold. Evidence from countries from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) suggested that visa facilitation could raise tourist arrivals by up to 25 per cent.
India’s visa openness remained below that of its peers. Its UN Tourism Visa Openness Index score of 38.14 was below the global average of 40 and trailed countries such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia. India currently offers visa-free entry only to Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives, while VoA is limited to a small set of nationalities. Although the e-visa covers 175 countries, it is constrained by category complexity, short stays, annual caps and limited flexibility for repeat travel.
The report said foreign tourist inflows in Telangana have yet to recover to pre-Covid levels, citing reduced international marketing budgets, a shift in traveller preference towards lower-cost Southeast Asian destinations and visa-related constraints.
It identified persistent frictions in the e-visa process, including fragmented portals requiring repeated data entry, extensive form fields, technical failures such as crashes and session timeouts, incompatibility with browsers and mobile devices, rejection of foreign card payments and weak customer support.
The report also noted that a poor interface has led to the proliferation of fraudulent lookalike sites. Industry concerns, including those raised by the World Travel & Tourism Council, were cited as highlighting reputational and operational costs.
The report acknowledged recent measures such as expanded e-visa access, upgraded ports of entry, a multilingual helpline, an e-Arrival card and the National Payments Corporation of India’s UPI One World pilot, but said further improvements are required to ensure reliability. It concluded that a more facilitative entry regime, balanced with digital security, could increase arrivals, drive repeat visitation and raise tourism revenues.
