From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI, June 21: The Centre hopes the Northeast will become a major growth engine for India’s travel economy, but poor infrastructure, patchy connectivity and cumbersome permit systems are preventing the region from emerging as a global tourism hotspot, according to a new knowledge paper unveiled at the recent North East India Infrastructure Summit in Shillong.
The report, Tourism Infrastructure in Northeast India, highlights a striking paradox: the eight northeastern states recorded nearly 12.8 million domestic tourist visits in 2024, yet attract less than one per cent of India’s inbound international tourists. The authors argue it is not a demand problem but an infrastructure, governance, and perception challenge — all of which are solvable.
Prepared by the Federation of Industry & Commerce of North Eastern Region (FINER), Build India Foundation and IIM Shillong, the paper describes the Northeast as one of India’s most underutilised economic opportunities, blessed with unique biodiversity, cultural diversity and attractions like Meghalaya’s living root bridges.
Stretching across 262,000 square kilometres and home to more than 200 ethnic communities, the region contains two global biodiversity hotspots and boasts attractions found nowhere else in the world like Meghalaya’s iconic living root bridges.
Yet tourism activity remains concentrated around a handful of gateway destinations such as Guwahati, Shillong, Kaziranga, leaving much of the region’s potential untapped, the study said.
Despite accounting for nearly eight per cent of India’s land area, the region contributes only around 2.5 per cent to national GDP. Tourism, the report says, is ideally suited to the region’s strengths and could drive employment and entrepreneurship.
Key bottlenecks include last-mile road connectivity, limited quality accommodation outside major centres, and fragmented permit systems that deter international visitors. The report recommends a unified digital platform for permits and the development of 25 Integrated Tourism Growth Nodes by 2047 to spread tourism across the region.
The study also highlights the Northeast’s strategic location as India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. Sharing nearly 5,500 kilometres of international borders with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China, the region could emerge as a hub for cross-border tourism under the Act East Policy.
Among its recommendations are pilot tourism circuits linking Guwahati-Dhaka, Shillong-Dhaka and Gangtok-Thimphu, while preparing for a future Imphal-Mandalay tourism corridor when conditions permit. The report argues that improving connectivity through projects such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project could fundamentally alter the region’s tourism prospects by connecting it to a wider transnational market stretching into Southeast Asia.
For a region grappling with youth unemployment and limited industrial opportunities, tourism could become a transformative sector, generating livelihoods through homestays, guiding services, transport, handicrafts, hospitality and cultural enterprises across remote districts.
Incidentally, the foreword of the report was written by Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat who describes Northeast India as “one of the world’s best-kept secrets” and future growth engine of the travel industry.
