In the past two decades, South Asia has emerged as a popular tourist destination due to its natural and cultural diversity, as well as price competitiveness, a new report by Brookings India, a nonprofit public policy organisation, reveals.

The study titled ‘Travel South Asia: India’s tourism connectivity with the region‘ notes that South Asia has improved tremendously in terms of tourism, especially since 2017, and India is at the helm of the growth. The report highlights that the economies of South Asian countries like Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka are sustained by tourism, and yet India has become the most preferred tourist destination in the region.

One of the reasons for this is the National Tourism Policy that India adopted in 2002 and the tourism ministry’s ‘Incredible India’ campaign then. While India’s share of global tourist arrivals stands at 1.2 per cent, it has seen a gradual growth in travellers from the South Asian region, who account for nearly a third of the total tourists.