Pakistan Tourism report by Government of Pakistan Page 11

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xecutive Summary

The year 2004 has recorded new heights for tourist arrivals in Pakistan by

hosting 6,48,000 tourists, compared to 5,00,900 tourists in the year 2003,
registering a remarkable increase of 29.4 percent. Likewise, Pakistan earned US
$ 185.6 million during the year 2004 from foreign tourism, compared to US $
135.6 million in year 2003, showing an increase of 36.9 percent. In the year
2004, Pakistan achieved record growth in tourist arrivals from all major tourist
generating markets. Efforts of the Government of Pakistan and Ministry of
Tourism to promote the face of Pakistan as a tourist friendly country, has helped
surpass tourist arrivals target of 6,15,000 for the year 2005 set by the
WTO/UNDP in Tourism Development Master Plan. If, this performance
continues, the tourist arrivals target of 7,20,000 set for the year 2010 by the
international development agencies, is likely to be achieved much before time.

The long term trends during 1995 � 2004 shows that Foreign Tourist arrivals to

Pakistan have been fluctuating between 369 thousand to 648 thousand. In the last
10 years, U.K., U.S.A, Canada, Germany and Afghanistan have been the major
foreign tourist generating countries for Pakistan.

In 2004, the top ten tourists generating countries were U.K., Afghanistan, USA,

India, Germany, China, Canada, Japan, Norway and the Netherlands. The tourist
arrivals from all these countries significantly increased in 2004.

U.K generated 1,96,300 tourists, in the year 2004, which was followed by

Afghanistan with 1,17,600 tourists, USA 87,300, India 19,700, Germany 19,000,
China 17,200, Canada 15,000, Japan 13,400, Norway 10,500 and the
Netherlands 9,900 tourists. Informatively, tourists from Afghanistan and India are
categorised as less lucrative and low revenue visitors. A substantial number of
ethnic tourists from U.K, also fall into the low revenue tourists category as generally,
they do not generate business for hotel and hospitality industry.

According to WTO estimates 760 million (projected) tourists travelled worldwide in

2004, reflecting an increase of 10 percent over the previous year. The South Asian
region, approximately received 8 million tourists (estimated) in 2004 for the first time,
recording an increase of 20 percent over the year 2003. However, Pakistan's share
in the region increased from 7.9 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2004. In world
tourist arrivals Pakistan's share was 0.09 percent while in the South Asian Region, it
was 8.5 percent in 2004.

According to the Domestic Tourism Survey-2000, approximately 41 million domestic

tourists travelled within the country in 2004. Nearly 90 percent domestic tourists
travelled by road, 8.5 percent by rail and only 1.8 percent travelled by air. For over
half of the domestic tourists, the main motivations for travel were social calls,
followed by recreation, business and health.

Despite relatively small and slow pace of growth of foreign and domestic tourism,

the Tourism Industry has played a significant role in the socio-economic
development, and has a promising future and growth potential in the Country.

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