Between 2017-2023: Foreigners continued to prefer Agra; Indians prefer Varanasi & Prayagraj
Between 2017 and 2023, foreigners continued to prefer and frequent Agra as their top destination in Uttar Pradesh, while Varanasi and Prayagraj were the top choices for Indians. Official data from the state tourism department indicates that Varanasi has been the top destination for Indian tourists over the past two years.
From 2017 to 2023, Uttar Pradesh welcomed 1.51 crore overseas tourists, with Agra being the choice for 80.08 lakh visitors and Varanasi for 28 lakh. Between 2017 and 2023, there were a total of 189 crore visits by Indians to the state, with 51.14 crore specifically to Prayagraj. A total of 38.83 crore visited Agra, while 27.33 crore were designated for Varanasi.
Between 2017 and 2023, Agra continued to be the top city visited by tourists from other countries, but foreign visitors significantly decreased when the global COVID-19 pandemic affected travel. The amount of tourists from other countries in 2023 was less than in the years before Covid-19 (2017-19), but has been increasing over the past two to three years.
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A comparable situation is observed in Varanasi and Prayagraj. Varanasi ranked second in the number of foreign tourists visiting the city from 2017 to 2023, excluding 2019. The city has not yet seen the same number of foreign tourists as it did before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2019, 1.2 million foreigners visited Prayagraj while 700K visited Varanasi
In 2019, only one other place had more foreign tourists than Prayagraj, which hosted the Kumbh Mela. Nearly 1.2 million foreigners traveled to the city, whereas Varanasi had only 700,000 foreign visitors. After 2020, the number of international tourists coming to the town is extremely low, with the total combined data for the years 2021 to 2023 not even reaching 10,000.
About 1.1 million foreigners visited Agra in 2023. Varanasi had 222,000 international visitors, whereas Prayagraj only had 4,853.
For Indian tourists, the most-visited destination kept switching between these three cities during 2017 and 2023. Agra was the most-visited city by Indian tourists in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 and 2021. Prayagraj saw the highest inflow of Indian tourists in 2019 and 2020. Varanasi was the most-visited city three times — in 2018, 2022 and 2023.
