The United Kingdom is losing out to its neighbour France in attracting Indian businesses and visitors, a leading UK-based think tank has said.
France received 185,000 more Indian business visitors and tourists in 2016, reported the Royal Commonwealth Society, adding that the overall number of visits to the UK by Indian nationals fell by 1.73 per cent in 2016. At the same time, Indian visitors to France grew by 5.3 per cent.
This could be changed by implementing an economical visa regime. The RCS has suggested implementing a new UK-India bilateral visa agreement that would reduce the cost of tourist visas from 388 pounds to just 89 pounds for a two-year visa.
The RCS released a similar report back in 2016, where it pointed out that the UK has missed billions by failing to make it easier and cheaper for wealthy Indians to apply for visas.
"We hope that the government will consider the very clear benefits of our recommendation, enhancing the already close affinity between two great Commonwealth nations," Tim Hewish, director of policy and research at the Royal Commonwealth Society and author of the report, said at the time.
According to statistics provided by UK's annual International Passenger Survey, the number of Indian visitors to the UK increased from around 150,000 in 1995 to over 350,000 in 2006. However, between 2006 and 2014 the numbers hovered around 23,000.
"Indian nationals are becoming wealthier and this has translated into an increase in the number of travellers, which the UK has not yet sufficiently courted," the 2016 report claimed. "Extending the visa pilot to India will send a clear signal to those potential visitors that the UK welcomes them and wants to make their travels easier," it said.
