London set to see a 90% increase in Indian visitors

Tourism numbers in London are projected to rise sharply by 2025, boosted by a 90% increase in the number of Indian visitors despite Brexit expected in 2019, according to mayor Sadiq Khan’s Tourism Vision for London released on Thursday.

The number of visitors arriving in London from India is projected to reach 0.52 million a year by 2025 (up from 0.27 million in 2016), according to data released on the occasion. The fastest growing markets for visitors to London are China (103% growth) and India (90%).

The money Indian visitors spend during a trip to London is also set to rise sharply from £258 million to £721 million by 2025 — an increase of 180%. Culture, arts, history and heritage are the prime reason for visitors.

Khan said, “London is the world’s greatest city, so it comes as no surprise that we lead the way when it comes to international tourism. Visitors to the capital bring huge benefits — the industry boosts London’s economy, as well as supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and showing the world that London is an open, welcoming and diverse city.” According to Google, London leads worldwide searches for city and short breaks ahead of Barcelona, Rome, Paris and Amsterdam, with the number of searches up by 17% year on year.

Theirs is a typical family of four, living normal lives, dining, playing, spending time together.

That they follow the world’s fifth largest religion — Sikhism, which originated in India — doesn’t make them different, they say, for they are proud Americans, sharing the same American values as others.

This is the message delivered in a 30-second ad, which tries to clear the air over their identities, as they have been mistaken for people from other ethnicity — but especially as terrorists, because of their beards and turbans.

Simply called “Proud”, the ad is among two that began airing in April, at the end of a long drawnout process that started at President Barack Obama’s second inaugural ball in 2013, just a few months after the massacre of six Sikh men and women at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

The tragedy was a turning point for the community of 500,000 that has battled ignorance about its religion and paid for it with their blood — they were the victims of the backlash over the September 11, 2001, World Trade Centre attacks, mistaken for a west Asian.

“We were the only two men in turban at the ball that night,” said Rajwant Singh, recounting the