Sri Vijaya Puram, Aug. 10: Historical tourism statistics of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have disappeared from the Directorate of Tourism’s official website following its migration to a new portal, taking away a key source of public data at a time when tourist arrivals to the Islands have risen sharply.
The Directorate’s earlier website maintained month-wise and annual tourist arrival figures spanning several years, allowing businesses, researchers, policymakers and the public to track the growth and seasonality of one of the Islands’ most important industries.
The statistics section is no longer available on the new portal. Consequently, historical records that were earlier available directly from the Directorate cannot currently be accessed through its website.
The disappearance assumes significance given the pace at which tourism has grown in the Islands. Available government records show that the Andaman and Nicobar Islands received 7,21,894 tourists in 2024, comprising 7,10,397 domestic and 11,497 foreign visitors. That compares with approximately 3.32 lakh tourists in 2023 and 2.39 lakh in 2022.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic tourist arrivals had reached 5,05,398 in 2019. Tourism subsequently collapsed as travel restrictions hit the Islands, with just 54,529 visitors recorded in 2021, including 53,549 domestic and 980 foreign tourists.
The subsequent recovery has been dramatic, making the availability of consistent historical statistics increasingly important for understanding how quickly the industry is expanding and whether infrastructure is keeping pace.
Tourism statistics are more than an archival record for an island economy such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Visitor numbers, particularly month-wise data, are an important planning tool because tourism directly affects demand for flights, airport capacity, inter-island ferries, hotels, taxis, roads, water and electricity, waste management and other public infrastructure.
The seasonal nature of Andaman tourism makes monthly figures particularly relevant. Seven lakh tourists spread relatively evenly through a year present a very different infrastructure requirement from the same number concentrated during a few peak-season months.
Historical data is equally important for businesses and potential investors. Decisions on investing in hotels, resorts, restaurants, ferry services and other tourism-related businesses depend, among other factors, on credible information about visitor growth, seasonality and demand.
It also provides a measure of public policy. As the administration spends on tourism promotion and infrastructure, a continuous official statistical series allows policymakers, businesses and the public to assess whether infrastructure creation is keeping pace with the increase in visitors.
The jump from around 3.32 lakh tourists in 2023 to more than 7.21 lakh in 2024, for instance, makes it important to understand not merely how much tourism has grown but also when that additional traffic arrived and the pressure it placed on the Islands’ infrastructure.
Government data resurfaces on private portal
Ironically, some of the historical government data that is no longer accessible on the Directorate’s website has now resurfaced through private travel portal Tropical Andamans.
The portal has published a compilation of historical visitor statistics that it says was reconstructed from archived versions of the Directorate of Tourism’s previous website available through the Internet Archive.
Tropical Andamans says the underlying figures were drawn from official government publications and archived Directorate records, while the compilation and cross-verification were undertaken independently.
The portal has said its database is currently the only publicly accessible compilation of the complete historical monthly tourism series following the migration of the government website. The Wave Andaman could not independently establish whether another complete month-wise compilation is publicly available elsewhere.
The recovered records show that the Islands received 4,87,229 tourists in 2017, comprising 4,71,919 domestic and 15,310 foreign visitors. The data also captures the collapse during the pandemic and subsequent recovery, with arrivals rising from around 2.39 lakh in 2022 to 3.32 lakh in 2023 before jumping to more than 7.21 lakh in 2024.
The month-wise figures reveal how sharply visitor traffic increased during the peak tourism season.
Tourist arrivals rose from 34,417 in October 2023 to 86,094 in October 2024, according to the compilation. In November, arrivals nearly tripled from 35,131 in 2023 to 1,04,556 in 2024. According to the compiled figures, December 2024 alone recorded almost as many tourist visits as the entire first half of 2022.
Such variations underline the importance of keeping month-wise historical statistics publicly accessible. Annual totals provide the headline growth number but do not reveal the periods during which airports, ferries, hotels, roads, water supply and other infrastructure face the greatest pressure.
The disappearance of the statistics also raises a broader issue over preservation of public information when government websites are redesigned or migrated.
The data had already been collected and published by the government and was previously available in the public domain. The issue, therefore, is not the absence of historical tourism statistics, but the loss of easy public access to official records that were available earlier.
For now, at least part of that statistical history survives through archived versions of the old government website and the compilation by Tropical Andamans. But with tourist arrivals crossing 7.21 lakh in 2024 and tourism becoming an increasingly important driver of the Islands’ economy, maintaining a continuous and easily accessible official database is critical for planning future infrastructure, attracting investment and measuring whether the Islands are equipped to handle the pace of tourism growth.
