The number of foreigners visiting Jharkhand has increased almost 60 times in the past two decades, according to the Union tourism ministry which said that while only 3,111 foreign travelers visited the state in 2000 their numbers were 1.76 lakh in 2019.

Officials of the tourism department said that the number of foreign tourists coming to Jharkhand had increased gradually every year since 2000. As per the latest Indian Tourism Statistics released by the ministry, as many as 1,70,987 foreign travelers visited Jharkhand in 2017 and the number increased to 1,75,801 in year 2018. In 2019, as many as 1,76,043 foreign tourists visited Jharkhand.

“The number of foreign tourists visiting Jharkhand has certainly increased, but we want the number to grow further,” said tourism director A Dodde. “If we look at the tourism map of India, then we can see that most of the popular tourist destinations attract a lot of foreign tourists. Foreign tourists also help popularise a spot,” he added.

Dodde said that foreigners coming to Jharkhand visited locations across the state, and there was no one particular spot which was preferred over others.

The government in Jharkhand has taken several initiatives in the recent past to boost tourism. Many tourist spots were developed and the state also opened its doors to the film industry during the former NDA-led government.

Patratu valley in Ranchi, Netarhat in Latehar and many dams and waterfalls across Jharkhand were selected as sites for shooting of Bollywood films in the past years, which contributed to their popularity, said a highly placed source in the tourism department.

Recently, the Hemant Soren-led government in Jharkhand announced a flat subsidy of either 30 per cent or Rs 10 crore -- whichever was less -- on capital investment for developing tourism facilities such as hotels, parks and resorts. The subsidy, as per the new tourism policy, will be 35 per cent for investments in tribal districts. The government is also working on a single-window-system for tourism, where tourists can find all information related to Jharkhand on one platform.

In 2000, when Jharkhand came into being, only 4.53 lakh tourists visited the state and 3,111 of them were foreigners. In 2018-19, over 3.55 crore tourists visited the state and 1.76 lakh of them were foreigners.

However, the tourism director admitted that the inflow of foreign tourists to Jharkhand reduced drastically in the year 2020 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions.