Policy Update
Ayush Yadav
Background
India’s tourism system has always been characterized – in the language of none less than the Ministry of Tourism’s own task force – as extremely fragmented, where the country’s Central departments, its state tourism bodies, and many private players have operated separate, incompatible data and service-management infrastructure. This diagnosis took official form for the first time in the National Digital Tourism Mission (NDTM) report, released for public view in March 2022 and authored by a team comprising a consortium of Central Ministries assembled in July 2021. At the NDTM’s heart was an envisioned “digital highway” of federated registries, standards, and building blocks to link tourists, their suppliers, and a bevy of public agencies.
Based on this narrative, the Ministry has successively rolled out several digital solutions to create India’s modern digital tourism ecosystem. Visible at the forefront is the new and improved Incredible India Digital Platform (IIDP), unveiled in September 2024, and designed as a one-stop, multilingual gateway providing an enriched itinerary of destinations and seamless booking services (air, rail, cab, bus, and tours) and ticketing for Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) monuments via online travel aggregators. To parallel the visitor-centric IIDP, the Ministry rolled out the supply-centric National Integrated Database of Hospitality Industry (NIDHI/NIDHI+) to digitize the registration/classification/recognition of accommodation units and tourism service providers through “One Nation, One Registration.”
For the ‘evidence’ and ‘governance’ aspect, the Ministry’s R&A Division manages the India Tourism Data Portal, capturing Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs), Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs), Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs), and e-visa numbers along with estimates derived from the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and State/ UT-centric dashboard views, accessible to citizens and government officials alike. Collectively, the initiatives signal an evolutionary step by the Ministry: from discrete, scheme-bound digitization to an integrated, data-focused mode of destination governance in which strategic planning, activity monitoring, and marketing would ideally be undertaken in response to real-time, standardized data sets rather than cyclical, routine administrative reporting.
Functioning
The “Digital Tourism Stack,” digitally institutionalized by the Ministry, is the R&A Division (official statistics holder and nodal agency for Digital India/Market Research Div (portal co-dev with NIC). And in the IIDP layer it is composed of the ‘Destinations’, ‘Arts, Culture, Fairs and Festival,’ & ‘Itineraries’, while in addition it includes ‘AI enabled personalized tool integrated to the booking module (Travel)’ based upon dynamic weather, client based preferences which will integrate and facilitated to connect to the empaneled OTAG/TAAs online travel agents for online travel booking portal/website “Book Your Travel”.
The layer below that is the NIDHI+ Portal, an application-based supply-side database into which units of accommodation, travel agents, tour operators and independent restaurants apply to be identified as ‘classified and recognized’. Integrated with a payment gateway for faster and more transparent processing of applications, the Ministry clarified that NIDHI is a voluntary classification database and not a booking or tracking system – a key functionality limit for interpreting the data collected. The loop is completed with the India Tourism Data Portal, which translates administrative and immigration data from the Reserve Bank of India, the Bureau of Immigration, et al into official statistics complying with UN standards (IRTS 2008 International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics).
While monthly FTA and FEE data are available with a lag of a little over a month after the month the data is collected, state/UT level data requires submissions and is hence less timely and reliable in quality across geographies. Central Financial Assistance to States funds the destination/infrastructure initiatives such as Swadesh Darshan 2.0, Challenge Based Destination Development (CBDD), and Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI), for which digital monitoring is required, although not a fully realized condition for payment release.
Performance
The platforms received good traction, at least quantitatively. As of 2024, the IIDP logged 294.76 crore domestic tourist visits, besides 47.9 per cent growth in FTAs in the last two years, with about 95.20 lakh FTAs to India in 2023, which are projected to be higher for 2024 on a provisional basis. According to the Ministry’s Budget documents for 2026-27, the SASCI sanctioned 40 projects across 23 states for an outlay of about Rs 3,295.76 crore on a 100 per cent central funding basis in 2024-25, along with Swadesh Darshan 2.0 and CBDD, which have sanctioned 53 and 36 projects to be undertaken at the destination level.
The spending has, however, lagged behind the sanctioned allocations – the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture had lamented the consistent “under-spending of funds allocated for schemes: actual expenditure in 2023-24 was 33.4% of Rs 2,400 crore approved, whereas in 2024-25, out of Rs 2,479.62 crore approved, the expenditure recorded only Rs 396.82 crore. The Committee concluded that ‘under-spending was caused by administrative bottleneck/ delays/ slow pace of procedures/ lack of coordination among implementing agencies.’” Overall allocations across the Ministry have risen steeply, at least on paper – Budget Estimate 2025-26 has allocated Rs 2,541.06 crore compared with Rs 850.36 crore for 2024-25, while for most of the year, expenditure is below 60% of revised estimated budget allocation.
Impact
The impact, the digital transformation has made on the sector is observable – it has increased the discoverability and book ability of Indian destinations, has united scattered scheme and destination information in single views, and has provided for public access to a comprehensive set of standardized information about Indian tourism that has been accessible in few other circumstances to policy makers and researchers through the India Tourism Data Portal, while The India Tourism Data Registry has expanded the Ministry’s awareness of the reach, the depth, and organization of hotels, the extent of hotel amenities, which the Ministry itself noted had become a “key element for determining carry-capacity at destination, emergency response at destination etc.”
The effect of digital data recording remains somewhat imperfect in tandem with progress. For instance, NIDHI currently covers only registered, categorized, private units; unregulated housing – an extremely large component of the hospitality universe across India, particularly in tier-2 and tier-3 and homestay pockets – is completely invisible to destination planning. Data uploaded at the state level on the India Tourism Data Portal tends to be determined by how fast and well States Upload data, which explains inconsistent granularity across the federal system and the underlying condition of fragmentation that the NDTM diagnosis sought to solve. Given the Parliament Standing Committee’s observation of gaps between projects sanctioned/digital/physical infrastructure and fund utilization, data visibility has not been translated into matching capacity building.
Emerging Issues
There are many structural issues that can be mentioned. First, chronic under-allocation and underutilization of funds, consistently highlighted by the Rajya Sabha’s Standing Committee, suggest poor absorption levels within the Ministry and implementing State agencies, vitiating effective translation of the digital plan into concrete action on the ground. Second, ongoing voluntary registration under NIDHI would lead to a serious underrepresentation of the budget and unorganized segments of the hospitality sector in the database and reduce its potential for use in inclusive destination management.
Third, State/ UT-level differences in capacities, timing, and method of data generation would pose limitations for ensuring the comparability needed for an integrated national tourism data. Finally, I am not convinced about the need for the original intent and grandeur of the NDTM to build a 100% fed-rated digital stack across both the central, state, and private sector tourism systems. There does not seem to be a roadmap on the ground that aims towards that goal. Currently, I have seen isolated work by the IIDP, the NIDHI+ and the data portal developed by the R&A division.
Way Forward
Connecting the dots between digital intent and destination impact will necessitate, firstly, better monitoring of fund flows and simpler disbursement processes under Swadesh Darshan 2.0, CBDD, and SASCI – perhaps by leveraging the digital dashboards being created by the Ministry to monitor utilization in near real-time, rather than only as a spur in parliamentary interrogation. And secondly, getting the informal hospitality sector to register under NIDHI+ by linking it to the States’ licensing system, GST concessions, or even homestay credit schemes like the MUDRA loan in the 2025-26 Budget, to broaden coverage.
Third, Standardization of State/UT reporting format and frequency for IIDP using a common data-sharing protocol in line with the Ministry’s admitted commitment to IRTS 2008, so as to make sub-national tourism statistics more comparable and reliable. Fourth, establish an appropriate data governance and privacy regime, consistent with DPDA 2023 to the extent that expansion of AI-enabled personalization and OTA data sharing takes place through IIDP. Fifth, accomplish the initially planned configuration of NDTM through federatedization of the IIDP, NIDHI+ and R&A data portal into a unified solution.
References
Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture. (2026). Three hundred ninety first report on demands for grants (2026–27): Ministry of Tourism. Parliament of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2245285&lang=1®=3
Ministry of Finance, Government of India. (2025). Union Budget 2025–26: Budget speech. Government of India. https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/budget2025-26/doc/Budget_Speech.pdf
Ministry of Finance, Government of India. (2026). Notes on demands for grants, 2026–2027: Ministry of Tourism (Demand No. 99). Union Budget 2026–27. https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/doc/eb/sbe99.pdf
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. (n.d.). India Tourism Data Portal. Research & Analytics Division. https://data.tourism.gov.in/
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. (n.d.). NIDHI+: National Integrated Database of Hospitality Industry. https://nidhi.tourism.gov.in/
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. (2022). Report on National Digital Tourism Mission. Government of India, Ministry of Tourism. https://tourism.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-09/National%20Digital%20Tourism%20Mission_2022.pdf
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. (2024, December 25). Year end review-2024: Ministry of Tourism. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2087824&lang=2®=48
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. (2025, September 27). World Tourism Day 2025: Tourism and sustainable transformation. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2172092&lang=1®=3
Press Information Bureau, Government of India. (2025, February 13). Initiatives taken by the Government to position India as a premier global tourist destination. Ministry of Tourism. https://www.pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=2102824
Press Information Bureau, Government of India. (2026, March 9). Budgetary allocation for tourism. Ministry of Tourism. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2237048&lang=1®=3
Press Information Bureau, Government of India. (2026, July 21). Tourism Ministry sanctions 117 projects worth ₹5,756.62 crore to develop tourism infrastructure. Ministry of Tourism. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2286914&lang=2®=48
About the Contributor
Ayush Yadav is pursuing a master’s in politics and international Relations at Central University of Gujarat, Vadodara. Graduated with honors in Political Science and has been actively involved in debating, Model United Nations, and Youth parliaments over the period of 4 years, and has specific interests in Research, Foreign Policy, and constitutional studies, and is a keen observer of domestic vis-à-vis global affairs. Maneuvering interests amidst Himalayan Geopolitics and Global Terrorism and affirming two-level game theory in practice.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the reviewers Vinita Sharma and Raushan Raj for their valuable comments and suggestions that strengthened this Policy Update.
Publisher: Neha Kumari
Disclaimer:
This article is intended for academic purposes only. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IMPRI or any institution.
