Open data · tourism statistics · as of July 2026
Andaman tourism statistics: the official numbers, honestly compiled
How many people actually visit these islands? The official answer for 2024 is 7,21,894 tourist visits — 7,10,397 domestic and 11,497 foreign. This page holds the full series: year by year, month by month, every source named — along with the two things almost nobody mentions when quoting these numbers. The government page that published them no longer exists. And the 2024 figure doubled for a reason that has more to do with counting than crowds.
Why this page exists: the Directorate of Tourism's statistics page — the original source of the monthly tables below — went offline in the government portal migration of early 2026, and the new portal carries no statistics section. We recovered the full series from the Internet Archive before it could disappear entirely. Until an official page returns, this is, to our knowledge, the only place the complete monthly record remains publicly readable. Figures are the government's; the compilation and cross-checks are ours.
Tourist visits by year
| Year | Domestic | Foreign | Total | Source · note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 4,71,919 | 15,310 | 4,87,229 | A&N Administration figures reported by PTI, Nov 2018 |
| 2018 | — | — | — | ITS archive pull pending · being added |
| 2019 | 5,05,398 | — | — | Ministry of Tourism ITS series · pre-COVID peak; foreign figure being added |
| 2020 | — | — | — | ITS archive pull pending · COVID year |
| 2021 | 53,549 | 980 | 54,529 | Directorate of Tourism monthly tables (Apr–Dec) · islands closed May–July |
| 2022 | ≈2,35,000 | 4,461 | ≈2,39,500 | MoT Compendium 2024 (0.235M) + Administration figure · dept's own monthly table stops at September |
| 2023 | 3,23,619 | 9,025 | 3,32,644 | Directorate monthly tables = MoT Compendium |
| 2024 | 7,10,397 | 11,497 | 7,21,894 | Directorate monthly tables = MoT Compendium 2025 · see "why 2024 doubled on paper" |
| 2025 | not published | · expected in the Sep 2026 Compendium — see below |
Dashes are gaps we have not yet compiled from the Ministry's archived annual reports — marked as gaps rather than estimated. The 2022 row is the Ministry's annual figure because the Directorate's own monthly table for that year stops at September and was never completed.
Month by month: 2023 and 2024
Total visits per month from the Directorate's tables. The season's shape is unmistakable — December 2024 alone recorded nearly as many visits as the entire first half of 2022.
Columns: month · 2023 visits · 2024 visits. Thick bar 2024, thin bar 2023. 2021 detail worth recording: May, June and July 2021 show literal zeros — the islands were closed to tourism during the second COVID wave.
The part nobody mentions
Why 2024 "doubled" on paper — visits are not visitors
The official series rose 117 percent in 2024. Air-passenger data — and virtually every visitor arrives by air — grew about 7 to 10 percent the same year. Both numbers are from official sources. The table below is how we reconcile them: official tourist visits divided by arriving air passengers.
| 2022 (full year) | 0.42 | visits per arriving passenger |
| 2023 (full year) | 0.49 | visits per arriving passenger |
| 2024 (11 months of pax data) | 0.98 | visits per arriving passenger |
| October 2024 | 1.28 | more tourists counted than people who landed |
| November 2024 | 1.29 | more tourists counted than people who landed |
| December 2024 | 1.34 | more tourists counted than people who landed |
A ratio above 1 is impossible for a count of arriving people — and October, November and December 2024 all exceed it. Sea arrivals cannot close the gap: the mainland ships sail only a few times a month, and no cruise service operated the route. The likeliest explanation is also the least dramatic one: the Ministry's metric is literally named Domestic Tourist Visits, and a visit-based count records one guest at Port Blair, again on Havelock, again on Neil. Nothing about that is improper — it is a standard basis for tourism statistics, and island-hopping is exactly what Andaman guests do. It simply means the series measures something different from what a casual reader assumes.
The honest summary: the islands' growth is real — the air data shows it, and record December arrivals show it. The doubling is arithmetic, not crowds. Quote the 7.2 lakh figure by all means; just call it visits, not visitors.
The foreign-visitor story runs the other way
While domestic tourism boomed past its pre-COVID levels, foreign visits have not recovered: 11,497 in 2024 against 15,310 in 2017 — still about a quarter below where they were seven years earlier. Foreigners are now under 2 percent of all visits, down from about 3 percent. The structural reason is hard to miss: Port Blair's airport, for all its growth, has no international routes at all — every foreign visitor must first clear an Indian metro. Until that changes, the islands' international story is a connecting-flight story.
For scale: the islands take just 0.02 percent of India's domestic tourist visits — Uttar Pradesh alone records nine hundred times more. Crowded Decembers notwithstanding, these remain, statistically, among the least-visited places in the country. That is not a complaint.
Using these figures
Quote anything on this page — in an article, a report, a thesis — with a link back so readers can check the sources themselves. No permission needed. If you need a figure that is not here (a specific month, the pre-COVID detail we are still compiling), ask us — if we hold it, we will share it, and if we do not, we will say so. Suggested credit: A&N Directorate of Tourism / Ministry of Tourism data, compiled by Tropical Andamans (July 2026).
Sources and method
Monthly tables: the A&N Directorate of Tourism's statistics page, recovered from Internet Archive snapshots (the live page has been offline since early 2026). Annual national series: the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Data Compendium, 2024 and 2025 editions — the Ministry's site currently returns errors for both PDFs, so we again worked from archived copies. Pre-COVID baseline: the Administration's figures as reported by PTI in November 2018. Air-passenger cross-check: DGCA monthly statistics via an open-licensed mirror, the same series behind our flight-data study. Where the record has holes — 2018, 2020, the foreign figure for 2019, the Directorate's incomplete 2022 table — the holes are shown as holes. Nothing on this page is an estimate.
The numbers, answered straight
How many tourists visit the Andaman Islands each year?
The most recent official full-year figure is 7,21,894 tourist visits in 2024 — 7,10,397 domestic and 11,497 foreign — from the A&N Directorate of Tourism's monthly tables, adopted into the Ministry of Tourism's national statistics. One caveat matters when quoting it: the official metric counts visits rather than visitors, and a guest who stays on Port Blair, Havelock and Neil in one trip can be counted at each. Air-passenger data suggests the number of individual travellers is meaningfully lower. The 2025 figure has not been published anywhere yet.
Why did Andaman tourist numbers double in 2024?
Mostly, they did not — the counting did. The official series jumped from 3.32 lakh visits in 2023 to 7.22 lakh in 2024, a rise of about 117 percent. But DGCA air-passenger data shows arrivals into Port Blair grew only around 7 to 10 percent that year, and virtually every visitor arrives by air. In October, November and December 2024 the official tourist count actually exceeds the total number of arriving air passengers, which is impossible for a count of arriving people. The likeliest explanation is a change in counting basis — from arrivals towards visits, where one guest is counted on each island they stay on. The growth is real; the doubling is arithmetic.
What is the busiest month for Andaman tourism?
December, by a wide margin. December 2024 recorded 1,35,515 visits in the official tables — the highest month on record, and nearly as much as the whole first half of 2022. The quietest month is July, with 18,643 visits in 2024. That seven-fold swing between peak and trough matches what our flight-arrivals study shows from the air-traffic side, and it is why December needs booking months ahead while September and October remain comfortable.
How many foreign tourists visit the Andamans?
Fewer than before the pandemic — 11,497 foreign visits in 2024 against 15,310 in 2017, a decline of about 25 percent even as domestic tourism boomed. Foreigners are now under 2 percent of visits, down from about 3 percent. The likeliest structural reason: Port Blair has no international flights at all, so every foreign visitor must connect through an Indian metro. Foreign visitor permits and rules are covered on our permits page.
Where are the 2025 Andaman tourism numbers?
Nowhere yet, as of July 2026 — and this is worth understanding. The Directorate of Tourism's statistics web page, which published the monthly tables, went offline during the government portal migration in early 2026 and has no equivalent on the new portal. The press has reported only a projection for 2025, not data. The next authoritative publication should be the Ministry of Tourism's annual compendium, due around September 2026. This page updates the moment a 2025 figure is published — and the historical tables above are preserved from web archives, since the original source no longer exists online.
Where do these statistics come from?
Four sources, every one named: the A&N Directorate of Tourism's monthly tables (recovered from the Internet Archive, since the government page went offline in 2026); the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Data Compendium editions for the annual national series; a 2018 PTI report carrying the Administration's pre-COVID figures; and DGCA air-traffic data for the passenger cross-check. Gaps in the table are marked as gaps rather than estimated. You are welcome to cite any figure here with a link — the sources and workings are shown so you can verify them yourself.
The rest of the data shelf
- 11 years of flight data — the air-traffic side of these same trends.
- 35 years of cyclone tracks — when the sea actually gets rough, from storm records.
- Best time to visit — what these seasonal numbers mean for your dates.
- Andaman in December — the busiest month, planned honestly.
How this page stays true
Compiled by the Tropical Andamans team in Port Blair, July 2026, from the government sources named above — none of the figures are ours, and none are estimates. The page updates when the Ministry's next compendium publishes (expected September 2026), when any 2025 figure appears, or when the Directorate's statistics page returns online — whichever comes first. We run tours here, which is both why we care about these numbers and what you should know when reading our commentary on them.
Numbers into plans
If the seasonality above tells you anything, it is that timing matters here. Tell us your dates and we will tell you honestly what they look like.