US forecasts desi visitors to grow at fastest rate this decade; double from pre-Covid level in 2029 – The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Uncle Sam expects visitors from India to proceed rising at the fastest rate until the tip of this decade — because it has seen occur publish Covid. The US authorities’s Nationwide Journey and Tourism Workplace (NTTO) has forecast visitors from India will greater than double at 201% from 2019’s 14.7 lakh in 2029, as towards a median of 122% for relaxation of the world with Italy being the second fastest at 131%. Total, worldwide visitors to America are anticipated to enhance to virtually 10 crore in 2029, up from the 2019 determine of 7.9 crore.
The US has to date seen visitors from solely two international locations surpass pre-pandemic ranges — India and Italy. “Helped by a powerful financial system, visitation from India has elevated 552% since 2020 to 22 lakh in 2024 and India has grow to be the fourth largest US inbound journey market. This sturdy development will proceed over the following few years. India visitation is predicted to be greater than double that of the 2019 level by 2029,” a NTTO doc says.
Going forward, the NTTO forecasts India to see the very best development over 2019 visitors. “For India, one of the fastest rising international locations because the pandemic, arrivals to america already exceeded the pre-pandemic level by virtually 50% in 2024. Though visitation from all Asian international locations included in the forecast elevated considerably in 2024, China and Japan had been nonetheless roughly midway again to their pre-pandemic ranges. On the identical time, arrivals from South Korea reached three quarters of its 2019 level,” the doc says.
The NTTO forecast covers the highest inbound markets for the US that embrace Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, UK, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Brazil. Visitation from these international locations accounted for 78% of whole US worldwide inbound arrivals in 2024. The US has categorised these prime markets underneath three heads: These which surpassed pre-pandemic ranges in 2024 (India and Italy); these that can accomplish that in 2026 (Germany, France, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico) and those who will probably be totally recovered in 2027 and later (Australia, China, South Korea, UK and Japan).
Whereas India-US journey is rouching new highs publish Covid, the journey business says it stays manner under potential due to two components — lengthy visa interview wait instances and few direct flights due to US airways not utilizing Russian airspace. A document quantity of Indians travelled to the US final calendar yr, greater than CY 2023’s determine of 17.6 lakh which had overtaken the pre-Covid 2019 excessive of 14.7 lakh. India is now the second largest abroad supply market of worldwide visitors to the US, after the UK.
The ready interval for B1/B2 interview is presently 407 days in Chennai; 156 in Delhi; 151 in Mumbai; 140 in Hyderabad and 114 in Kolkata, in accordance to the US state division web site.