The total number of Bangladeshi tourists visiting India last year crossed the one million mark for the first time, according to the latest official statistics of the big neighbour.
About 1.12 million (11.2 lakh) Bangladeshis travelled to the next-door neighbour in 2015 while the number was 0.94 million in 2014.
The second highest number of foreign tourists in India came from Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis increased their share of foreign tourist arrivals in India to 14.65 per cent in 2015 from 12.27 per cent in 2014.
Last year about 8.01 million foreign tourists visited India against 7.68 million in 2014. The tourist arrivals increased by 4.4 per cent.
The highest number of tourists came to India from the United States last year. The number was 1.21 million or 15.13 per cent of the total foreign tourists in India.
In 2014 about 1.12 million tourists from the US visited India. They accounted for 14.57 per cent of the total international tourists.
The Indian Tourism Statistics-2014, published by the country's tourism ministry, has details on the foreign tourist arrivals. The final statistics for 2015 are yet to be published. But the monthly official statistics, released by the ministry concerned, painted the same picture for 2015.
The United Kingdom accounted for the third largest number of foreign tourists in the country, 10.83 per cent of the total arrivals, in 2015. About 0.86 million tourists from the UK visited India last year against 0.83 million in 2014.
A large number of Bangladeshi tourists visited India mainly for the purpose of medical treatment.
Two years back, a joint study by the KPMG-FICCI said: "Bangladesh accounts for the highest number of medical tourists owing to the lack of quality healthcare infrastructure and unavailability of skilled manpower in their country. Moreover, India is a convenient option because of its physical proximity and similarity in culture, food and language."
The study also showed that in 2012 Bangladeshis accounted for 22 per cent of the foreign tourists in India for the medical purpose.
"There is no doubt that medical tourism is a major driving force to increase visits from Bangladesh to India," said Kazi Wahidul Alam, an expert in the aviation and tourism sector.
"Besides medical treatment, visits for business purposes also increased as trade between two countries is increasing," he added.
Interestingly, the increase in the number of outbound medical tourists from Bangladesh to India as well as other countries was not properly reflected in the official statistics of the country.
For instance, the service and income account of the balance of payments showed that the country's spending on foreign travels increased by 11.30 per cent in the July-December period of 2015. But no payment was made for health-related services during the period under review.
Mr Alam also said that Indian visa processing had been eased in the recent time.
"It is now easier to obtain Indian visa for medical, business, education and conference as no e-token is required for these visas," he said. Currently, e-token or online appointment is a must for only tourist visas. Visa applicants of other categories can submit visa applications in the walk-in system in vogue in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi.
"Visa processing centres have also increased in Dhaka and other parts of the country," he added.
The number of Indian Visa Application Centres (IVAC), managed by the State Bank of India, is four. Five other centres are in Chittagong, Khulna, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Mymensingh and Barisal.
Mr Alam was also of the view that narrowing the gap of the two countries' currency exchange rates also encouraged many people to visit India.
For instance, in February last year one US Dollar was available in exchange for 62 Indian Rupees while in December the rate stood at 67 on an average. At the same time the US Dollar-BDT exchange rate was almost stable at Tk 77.80.
As more Bangladeshis are now travelling to different destinations in India, the frequency of airlines also increased in recent time. For instance, Jet Airways now operate three flights daily between the two countries.
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