India’s Union Budget 2025-26 lays emphasis on taking measures to promote tourism, increase jobs, and enhance economic development. The government is committed to improving infrastructure and niche travel experiences as well as simplifying visa processes. This has piqued the interest of important stakeholders from the travel industry. A major proposal in the budget is to develop the best 50 tourist destinations in India in partnership with state governments. This should improve infrastructure, increase tourism opportunities, and also increase awareness about positive tourism amongst local communities. This will also help diversify tourism and get more places on the tourism map of India and at the same time help local economies.
The budget also proposed promoting medical and wellness tourism with the initiative, ‘Heal-in-India’, which aims to make India a global leader in both wellness and medical tourism. Towards this end, the government is streamlining visa procedures and giving visa fee waivers, making it affordable. This will attract a lot of global travellers looking for specialised medical treatments, wellness retreats, and alternative therapies and in turn create business opportunities for people in these fields.
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The government also plans to boost spiritual tourism and create special circuits that will take tourists around important spiritual sites within the country. Places like Shirdi, Puri, Haridwar, Varanasi, and Vasihno Devi are seeing noticeable rise in bookings. The government aims to ease the access to such places and draw a lot more domestic and global travellers.
The budget aims in promoting spiritual tourism by improving connectivity to major pilgrimage sites and developing associated infrastructure. This focus on enhancing accessibility and visitor experience at these sacred locations is expected to attract a larger influx of both domestic and international tourists.
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The government’s proactive measures are expected to significantly enhance India’s global image, attract foreign investment, and create a more robust and inclusive tourism sector. Industry experts predict that these initiatives will not only boost foreign exchange earnings but also generate significant employment opportunities across various related sectors.
