5 countries issue travel advisories against India

NEW DELHI: One after another, five countries - US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - have issued advisories against travel to India during the festival season. The ostensible reason for the caution is terror threat at this time, but the Indian government isn't impressed. It fears the advisories will hit tourism and says terror shouldn't be used to create a scare about visiting India.

"I have taken up this with the external affairs ministry and asked it to persuade these countries to withdraw the travel advisories immediately," Union tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahay told TOI. "This is nothing but scaremongering. Leave aside other parts of India, 100% booking is being reported from Jammu & Kashmir. If this isn't a sign of normalcy, what is?"

The industry is understandably jittery as it fears a cancellation rate of 10-15%. Adverse advisories tend to hike travel insurance as the risk factor goes up.

Foreign tourist arrivals in India between January-August 2011 have seen an encouraging 10% growth (in absolute terms, 3.8 million tourists came to India in this period compared to 3.4 million last year).