India, which sees an average of six million tourists visiting the country every year, wants to double the number by the year 2016, by promoting wellness and medical tourism, Union Tourism Minister has said.

India gets just over six million tourists every year and the government wants to double this number by the year 2016, Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai said.

Sahai announced that a tourism promotion forum will be set up at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi which will have representation from the tourism industry.

He added that a MoU will also be signed between India and the UAE to jointly promote tourism.

He said that outbound tourists from India are four times more than inbound tourists and the government has decided to take steps to improve these numbers.

He was speaking to media on the sidelines of an Incredible India Road Show which was organised here on Thursday.

Senior officials and tourism authorities of Assam, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra were also present on the occasion.

“We need 200,000 rooms in India. We need exhibition centres, convention centres, theme parks etc. “There is scope for promoting wellness tourism, medical tourism by propagating ayurveda and yoga etc. We have the Himalayas, we have 7,000 km of coastal areas that are all potential tourist attractions,” the minister said.

He said that around Rs 40,000 crore is needed to develop India’s tourism industry.

“The tourism promotion forum will suggest ways to improve things and we will act upon their suggestions,” the minister said.

He added that a MoU will also be signed between India and the UAE to jointly promote tourism.

Speaking on the occasion, India’s ambassador to the UAE MK Lokesh said there is a lot of diversity in terms of tourist attractions in India.

India is the third largest source of foreign tourists to the UAE, he said.

Tour operators and airline officials also attended a B2B session that was organised on the sidelines of the Road Show.

There has been a consistent growth of foreign tourist arrivals from the Gulf and the Middle East region to India over the last 2-3 years with year 2010 having registered an overall growth of around 17 per cent over the previous year.

According to India Tourism officials, foreign tourist arrivals in India touched 6. 29 million in 2011.

Till May this year, the number had reached 2.8 million and the foreign exchange earning during this period stood at $ 7297 million.

The ministry of tourism has set an aim to increase India’s share in international tourist arrivals from 0.6 per cent to 1 per cent by the year 2016.

India emerged as the top trading partner for UAE last year with the Gulf nation’s import from the country estimated at $ 28.5 billion and exports at $ 36.2 billion, according to official data.

Among the 10 countries that comprised almost 61 per cent of the total value of imports of UAE worth $ 100.6 billion in 2011, India emerged as the top nation with $ 28.5 billion, followed by China at $ 14.97 billion and the US at $ 14.2 billion, Federal Customs Authority said in a statement.

It added that among the 10 biggest export destinations for the UAE that constituted nearly 69 per cent of the country’s exports at $ 21.32 billion, shipments to India touched $ 9.8 billion, with the balance of trade in favour of India.

Switzerland took the second position with a volume of $ 3.9 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia at $ 1.5 billion.