Sharp decrease for Bodh Gaya tourism after terror attack

The sharp fall in the foreign tourists’ inflow in Bodh Gaya, India by 97,000 last year in comparison to figures a year earlier clearly spoke volume about impact of the serial blasts in the temple town.

Bodh Gaya is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have obtained Enlightenment.

Contrary to the Chief Minister’s remarks that inflow of foreign tourists to Bodh Gaya, India has increased in 2013 in comparison to a year earlier, the facts speak otherwise as the number of foreigners visiting the temple town stood at 1,10,956 in 2013 as against the corresponding figure of about 2,07,933 in 2012, former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said in a statement.

The definitive adverse impact of the terror attack at the world famous Mahabodhi temple and adjoining areas last year could be gauged by the reduced number of foreign tourists visiting Bodh Gaya at 54,625 in the second half of last year which was 40 per cent less than 90,000 foreigners visiting the holy town in the second half in 2012, Modi said.Modi was responding to the Kumar’s claim on Friday that the serial blasts in Bodh Gaya had no adverse impact on the foreign tourists’ inflow.

Earlier, the BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, while addressing an election meeting in Gaya two days ago, had castigated the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar for failing to prevent terror attack at Bodh Gaya that resulted in reduction in the foreign tourists inflow affecting livelihood of the local people.