Holidaymakers travelling to China and India will now face fewer restrictions on tourist visas, as the two Asian countries attempt to attract more international visitors. (Featured image by kevin.j)
This week the Indian government announced that an unpopular re-entry rule, introduced after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, will no longer apply to tourists – including those from Britain.
This means that travellers will be able to visit neighbouring Nepal or Bangladesh, and re-enter India without facing a 60-day wait.
The move was praised by the Indian tourism ministry, who forecast that the new rules would act to boost the number of foreign arrivals into the country.
Each year around six million tourists visit India, including 800,000 from Britain, with the ministry aiming to increase India’s share of global tourism arrivals from 0.64 per cent to 1 per cent.
A spokesman for The Ultimate Travel Company, which runs tours to the country, said: “Doing away with these restrictions will make things easier for business and leisure travellers, as well as those hoping to visit their families.”
China has also recently announced that it will allow transit passengers from 45 countries, including all members of the EU, the US and Canada to spend up to 72 hours in Beijing without a visa from next month.
Shanghai already allows some foreigners in transit to visit the city for 48 hours, including those from some European countries, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
The Beijing Tourism Administration stated on their website that the new rules would “strongly spur the development of the tourism industry, speed up the building of an international city and expand contacts with the rest of the world”.
Beijing currently has 5 million foreign visitors each year, and the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development expects this number to double in three years after the transit without visa (TWOV) policy comes into effect.
