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Following an improvement in the security situation, tourism in Pakistan has increased by 300per cent over the past few years, it emerged on Wednesday.
According to the report, 1.75 million tourists visited Pakistan in 2017 alone. Statistics from the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) show that 30pc travellers were domestic.
Also read: Reviving Pakistan’s tourism
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), last year, revenue from tourism contributed around $19.4 billion to Pakistan's economy and made up 6.9pc of gross domestic product. The WTTC expects that amount to rise to $36.1 billion within a decade.
Apart from an increase in annual tourism, there has been a significant increase in business travelling around the country as well.
Explore: 16 Pakistani tourist spots you must visit in 2016
A lot of credit for the rapid increase in tourism and travelling goes to publicity of different tourist spots through the internet.
The government has been making efforts to promote tourism and make PTDC a financially viable organisation, Managing Director PTDC Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor told APP.
He said that PTDC and the University of Management and Technology (UMT) Lahore had signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the sponsorship of the tourism department's publicity material including banners, website, seminars, and conferences.
Products and services of PTDC will also be promoted through social media.
Recently, PTDC has also launched a Pakistan Tourism Friends Club, in which members of the club will get exclusive 20pc discount on PTDC facilities.
Read more
On DawnNews
Comments (57) Closed
Apr 25, 2018 04:10pm
Local tourism is increasing and people in Gilgit Baltistan earn it, after all this suffering!
But sorry to say: Where are this 1,75 foreign Tourist you are talking about?
Most of this 1,75 million tourists are Pakistan people with an foreign passport, who are come back for a short visit.
That more and more educated people from Pakistan are going abroad for ever, should be alarming. Not in Pakistan: here you are still celebrating fake figures. Yes of course not the most people - only the responsible people...
People in Pakistan would earn 20 million Tourists - no doubt. But for this a lot of changes are necassary.
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Apr 25, 2018 04:14pm
Usd 19.6 billion...what is the source if these numbers...impossible
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Apr 25, 2018 04:23pm
I am an Indian Hindu from the state of Bengal. I want to visit Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. But fear to visit due to hostile relations between two countries. Want to know from Pakistani friends if they support Indians visiting Pakistan as tourists.
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Apr 25, 2018 04:29pm
Welcome to the land of six seasons, home of seven out of 10 highest peaks in the world, a place having the best global cuisine and a great country with the top hospitable 225 million people, who love all international visitors to their homeland except the two "Is" (Israelis and Indians).
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Apr 25, 2018 04:31pm
More than publicity you need to work on providing good facilities.
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Apr 25, 2018 04:32pm
No they did not!! You count overseas Pakistanis as tourists too. Shame on you
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Apr 25, 2018 04:43pm
That’s true because Im seeing more and more foreigners in my city since the mid 2017
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Apr 25, 2018 04:46pm
How many of those were Overseas Pakistanis visiting family and friends?
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Apr 25, 2018 04:50pm
I am a Pakistani with Norwegian nationality. I was in Pakistan too in 2017 and I am sure there are many likes me who travel to Pakistan because of family relations and not general turism. This is why I do not trust these numbers.
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Apr 25, 2018 04:51pm
@Hasan I agree. I am "oversea Pakistani" and I am most likely in these numbers too. I am not a real tourist.
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Apr 25, 2018 04:52pm
It's so cheap to travel in Pakistan, great variety of places to visit for every taste & not just the beaches, very hospitable people across the country & not to mention the amazing food from vegetarian to seafood & every thing in between even the easily available foods from other countries. Hopefully more n more people would come to experience the hospitality of Pakistani people.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:00pm
I live abroad. I have taken my family to Pakistan twice in last 2 years. It is always 1st on my list to visit. The whole ambience has significantly improved. Great news. Great figures. Please guys do not spread the negativity.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:36pm
Totally fake figures. Non of the foreigners want to visit Pakistan. They feel unsafe.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:37pm
Wonderful news if it is true. We should offer numerous incentives to foreign tourists if we want to boost our tourism industry. Pakistan has a lot to offer in terms of history and natural beauty.
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Apr 25, 2018 06:00pm
We must facilitate more to these beautiful areas. This number will increase massively in coming years.
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Apr 25, 2018 06:24pm
if i were the president or PM i would allow visa on arrival for all countries including India. this will help develop economy.
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Apr 25, 2018 06:42pm
Tourism local/foreign is source of earning/ enjoyment.
In Pakistan when we talk about tourism , we only think of northern side of country and think of mountains. No body ever thought of other areas of Pakistan like deserts of Thar & Cholistan. There is no problem of security in these areas. Time to high light other areas of Pakistan that are historical and beautiful.
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Apr 25, 2018 06:43pm
Improve the service sector by giving trainings to people. There are news of maltreatment of tourists from Murree and other destinations.
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Apr 25, 2018 07:32pm
Overseas pakistanis are not tourists. Please give us figures of rooms booked in hotels, restaurants earnings etc.
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Apr 25, 2018 07:43pm
Great news. Keep up the good work. Improving security situation will attract more local and foreign investors and economy will boom again.
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Apr 25, 2018 07:53pm
These figures appear bogus at best, for both numbers of tourists and the revenue earned.
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Apr 25, 2018 07:58pm
$19.4 billion , not sure if this is correct
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Apr 25, 2018 07:58pm
I wonder if the #revenue $19.4 billion shown in the article is correct ?
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Apr 25, 2018 08:13pm
Good PTDC.keep it up
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Apr 25, 2018 08:41pm
Pakistan has tremendous natural beauty,only if we are willing to tap it for the benefit of millions
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Apr 25, 2018 08:50pm
According to figure gives by Pakistan Tourism Department, the foreign tourists visiting Pakistan include overseas Pakistani who visit their relatives every year. The question is whether we can call them tourists..
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Apr 25, 2018 08:59pm
1.75 million foreign tourist figure is still very low, improving though gradually. Turkey attracted about 60 million tourists, France and Spain attracts in excess of 80 million.
Pakistan has the potential to attract more, in the report it is mentioned about 30% of them were domestic tourists or Pakistani diaspora. Lately lots of Chinese visiting Pakistan....
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Apr 25, 2018 09:15pm
Also please mention how many of those 1.75 million "tourists" are Pakistanis or people of Pakistani origin living abroad? I would guess more than 90%.
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Apr 25, 2018 09:47pm
I suspect they include overseas Pakistanis as tourists.
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Apr 25, 2018 10:14pm
These numbers of tourist can be increased if we promote our tourism specially if our missions abroad arrange some expo but unfortunately they are misguiding tourists few weeks ago one of my family friends tried to apply visa from Pakistan embassy in Dubai but the gentleman at the visa counter not only refused but also mentioned that there is nothing to see in northern areas and Islamabad, in their application they mentioned that they are interested to visit northern areas because of they heard about it beauty of northeastern areas. :(
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Apr 25, 2018 10:48pm
if you provide better facilities our beuty is 100 times more atractive than other countries, but we lack in facilities.
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Apr 25, 2018 10:49pm
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad
Why shouldn't Indians be welcomed. The common people of Indian have nothing to do with international politics and culturally, linguistically have more common with Pakistanis than any other nation.
The more Pakistanis and Indians travel to each other's nations and engage in mutuall beneficial trade, the higher the likelihood there will peace and love between the two brotherly nations. The same applies to Afghani.
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Apr 25, 2018 11:02pm
US$ 19.6 b !!!, Really,$$$? or PKR? that is impossible. That's more than entire forex reserves of Pakistan!
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Apr 25, 2018 11:40pm
This comes to around US$ 164.5 million which is not much for Pakistan. At least, 0.5 billion dollars per year we need to generate per year.
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Apr 25, 2018 11:49pm
Who is traveling to Pakistan who is not a Pakistani origin? I want to travel to Pakistan and US travel department advises strongly against it. This is a birth place of my ancestors and still I can not visit because of the terrorist threats. These figures do not look true. Pakistan has to get rid of ALL terrorist in any form and against any country. Then only situation can improve. And travelers will come
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Apr 25, 2018 11:50pm
I don't believe a word of this report, I'm in agreement with others on the fact that most of these so called tourists are from Pakistani origin. Imagine eliminating terrorism all together, that 1.7 million tourists figure would be reality, even more than that.
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Apr 25, 2018 11:52pm
The report is nothing but PML-N trying to boost their not so popularity just in time for elections.
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Apr 25, 2018 11:55pm
@andy well said! I agree with you. They are counting overseas Pakistani’s in this tally. No way are so many people coming to Pakistan especially with Pakistan’s negative image worldwide
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Apr 26, 2018 12:05am
@andy _ you are right. The Govt of Pakistan says around only 410000 foreigners visited Pakistan (airports data only) in 2017. So how come 1.75 m tourists? It's obvious the vast majority is of Pakistani/local tourists to Northern Areas.
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Apr 26, 2018 12:33am
Made up mainly of overseas Pakistanis visiting relatives and friends.
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Apr 26, 2018 12:50am
The majority of tourists are Pakistanis that have settled in U.K. and USA - they come back to visit family not because they are tourist
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Apr 26, 2018 12:57am
Fake statistics, do not include Pakistanis living abroad who have to get Pakistani Visa's.
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Apr 26, 2018 02:21am
Do the numbers include expats visiting relatives!
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Apr 26, 2018 02:22am
Are the numbers based on tourist visas issued!
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Apr 26, 2018 02:45am
19 billion USD seems to be a FAKE figure
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Apr 26, 2018 02:46am
@andy even if these are expats, why has the number increased? It doesn't matter who is bringing the cash so long as it is coming to Pakistan.
Others will follow too and already are.
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Apr 26, 2018 02:58am
@Hasan How you know that? Do you have any proof?
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Apr 26, 2018 03:13am
So what happened to the fourteen billion dollar earnings from tourism? Why have we still got this problem with foreign currency reserves?
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Apr 26, 2018 03:45am
@Hasan even after counting expat Pakistanis it is still an abysmally small number.
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Apr 26, 2018 04:19am
In Pakistan federal,provincial,city governments are doing very little in promoting travel,tourism, transportation and aviation.
Pakistan have a great potential in promoting these sectors,not only in generation billions of revenue and millions of jobs.Only these sectors can reduce unemployment in the country.
Azad Kashmir,northern areas have a lot to offer in this sector.
I will urge all areas of government to put efforts in these sectors.
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Apr 26, 2018 04:55am
They all are Pakistanis who visited their homeland.
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Apr 26, 2018 06:15am
Love my land. For the critics, is counting expat tourists only done by us?
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Apr 26, 2018 06:27am
Again fooling people. 30% domestic, 40% Chinese workers and 30% overseas Pakistanis, this should be right. As usual, the government of Pakistan revealing wrong stats.
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Apr 26, 2018 06:53am
Dr. Salaria Amair Ahmad, 8 out of top 10 highest peaks of the world lies in Nepal.Only 2 out of 10 lies in Pakistan.Correct your facts.
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Apr 26, 2018 07:25am
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad sir we can't ignore Indians, as, you know Sikh Yatrees are also regular visitors and we cannot afford to deny them travelling to the land of Baba Guru Nanak Dev ji, as this is their birth right. Yes Israelis, we don't owe them.
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Apr 26, 2018 10:37am
Welcome, welcome my Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist brothers and sisters. I will protect you from my life. This is what they to me when I go to India.
IndoPak Blood Brothers 4 Life!
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Apr 26, 2018 11:01am
@Amir The number have increased because more and more educated Pakistan people leave the country. But you know how important the family is in Pakistan. So many come back for a visit.
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