Dubai: Buoyed by the revival of tourism in Jammu and Kashmir and a boom in Southern States like Goa and Kerala, foreign tourist arrivals to India are tipped to go up by 25 per cent this year, a top tourism official said.

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"A series of promotions led by the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Taj Mahal, an all time draw for visitors, is expected to lift tourist arrivals by 25 per cent this year," Rashmi Verma, Additional Director General of Tourism, said yesterday (May 6, 2004).

Verma, who was here to attend the 11th Arabian Travel Mart said that the foreign tourist arrivals in the first three months of this year had already gone up by 16 per cent compared to the same period last year.

This trend is likely to continue with the liberalisation on chartered flights and India emerging as an all-round, year-round destination, she said.

Goa and Kerala led the country as the States attracted the maximum number of foreign tourists while Jammu and Kashmir was regaining its lost glory with the improvement in relations with Pakistan, she said.

She said India was a favoured destination for wedding and honeymoon as people from abroad could choose a wedding in Rajasthani or Kerala style.

"The number of visitors from the Gulf countries have gone up by 30 per cent as the Arab tourists are looking East now," she said adding India was one of the very few countries where tourism was not hit either by September 11 terrorist strikes in the US or the SARS epidemic.