Kushinagar, Oct 19 (UNI) The much-awaited Kushinagar International Airport, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, will help revive and boost tourism from South Asian countries, according to tourism and hospitality experts.
The experts believe that tourist inflow from countries like China, Malaysia, Japan Singapore and Thailand will soon pick up with the opening of the airport as Covid cases continue to be at its lowest ebb for weeks together in northern India in general, and Uttar Pradesh in particular.
It is worth mentioning here that according to the data of the Bureau of Immigration, Kushinagar and Shravasti had been witnessing consistent increase in the number of tourists since 2017, until the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic struck the world. Kushinagar received 8.98 lakh, 9.3 lakh, 9.7 lakh and 10.96 lakh tourists in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, which dropped to 3.23 lakh tourists in 2020 due to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. Similarly, Shravasti received 2.2 lakh, 2.58 lakh, 11.32 lakh and 12.71 lakh in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, which dipped to mere 0.17 lakh in 2020.