Open data · tourism statistics · last checked 5 October 2026
Andaman tourism statistics: the official numbers, honestly compiled
How many tourists visit these islands? The A&N Directorate of Tourism's count for 2024 is 7,21,894 — 7,10,397 domestic and 11,497 foreign. The sources do not say how that count is made, and it does not establish how many different people visited. This page holds the full series: year by year, month by month, every source named — along with two things almost nobody mentions when quoting these numbers. The government page that published them no longer exists. And the 2024 figure doubled while passenger arrivals on domestic flights rose by about a sixth.
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 page. We read the series from the Internet Archive, whose last capture, on 27 August 2025, shows the tables for 2021 to 2024. That capture and this page are the only places we know of where the monthly record can still be read. Figures are the government's; the compilation and cross-checks are ours.
Tourist arrivals by financial year
The one complete official series: ten financial years, April to March, from the A&N Directorate of Economics and Statistics' Basic Statistics 2024-25 (Table 21.4, "Arrival of Tourists in A & N Islands"). The volume is labelled 2024-25, and its last row is 2023-24.
| Year | Domestic | Foreign | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | 2,92,233 | 15,581 | 3,07,814 |
| 2015-16 | 3,13,265 | 12,553 | 3,25,818 |
| 2016-17 | 4,21,846 | 16,012 | 4,37,858 |
| 2017-18 | 4,98,473 | 15,766 | 5,14,239 |
| 2018-19 | 4,98,784 | 16,439 | 5,15,223 |
| 2019-20 | 5,07,528 | 13,221 | 5,20,749 |
| 2020-21 | 80,326 | 968 | 81,294 |
| 2021-22 | 82,429 | 1,504 | 83,933 |
| 2022-23 | 3,01,943 | 7,166 | 3,09,109 |
| 2023-24 | 3,46,903 | 10,550 | 3,57,453 |
This series checks the monthly tables below. Adding the Tourism Directorate's months from April 2023 to March 2024 gives 3,46,903 domestic and 10,550 foreign — the statistics directorate's 2023-24 row exactly. For 2021-22 the months give 82,429 domestic, again exact, and 1,501 foreign against the row's 1,504.
Tourists by calendar year
| Year | Domestic | Foreign | Total | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 4,71,919 | 15,310 | 4,87,229 | A&N Administration figures as reported by PTI on 25 November 2018; the domestic figure is the total less the foreign one |
| 2021 | 53,549 | 980 | 54,529 | Directorate of Tourism monthly table, April to December only; May, June and July show zero |
| 2022 | 2,35,061 | 4,461 | 2,39,522 | Derived: the Directorate's table for January to September, plus the rest of financial year 2022-23 from the statistics directorate. The Ministry of Tourism prints 0.235 and 0.004 million |
| 2023 | 3,23,619 | 9,025 | 3,32,644 | Directorate of Tourism monthly table, as last captured. The Ministry of Tourism prints 0.323 and 0.009 million, which fits the table before its August 2023 row was revised (3,23,189) |
| 2024 | 7,10,397 | 11,497 | 7,21,894 | Directorate of Tourism monthly table; the Ministry of Tourism prints 0.710 and 0.011 million |
| 2025 | Not published in any official source we could find on 5 October 2026 — see the questions below | |||
Calendar-year totals for 2018, 2019 and 2020 are in no official source we could open, so they are not shown; the financial-year table above covers those years. The Directorate's own table for 2022 stops at September and was never completed, which is why that row is built from two sources.
Month by month: 2023 and 2024
Totals per month from the Directorate's tables. The season's shape is unmistakable — December 2024 alone recorded about as many as the first nine months of 2022 put together (1,36,190).
Columns: month · 2023 · 2024. Thick bar 2024, thin bar 2023. 2021 detail worth recording: May, June and July 2021 show zero in the Directorate's table. One row changed between archive captures: August 2023 reads 14,499 in the capture of 9 December 2023 and 14,929 in 2025. We show the later table, which is the one the financial-year series agrees with; the Ministry of Tourism's 2023 figure and its 119.81 percent growth rate fit the earlier one.
The part nobody mentions
Why 2024 "doubled" on paper — and what the count does not tell you
The official series rose 117 percent in 2024. Passengers arriving at Port Blair on domestic flights rose about 16 percent over the eleven months for which both years have data (May 2024 is missing from the passenger series). Both numbers are from official sources. The table below sets one against the other: tourists counted, divided by passengers arriving on domestic flights.
| 2022 (full year) | 0.42 | tourists counted per domestic-flight arrival |
| 2023 (full year) | 0.49 | tourists counted per domestic-flight arrival |
| 2024 (eleven months, like for like) | 0.88 | tourists counted per domestic-flight arrival |
| October 2024 | 1.28 | more tourists counted than domestic-flight arrivals |
| November 2024 | 1.29 | more tourists counted than domestic-flight arrivals |
| December 2024 | 1.34 | more tourists counted than domestic-flight arrivals |
A ratio above 1 means more tourists were counted than passengers arrived on domestic flights, and October, November and December 2024 all exceed it. Read that with its limits. The passenger series leaves out international flights — the Airports Authority recorded 9,929 international passengers at Port Blair in the whole of 2024-25 — and arrivals by sea, where the mainland ships sail only a few times a month and no cruise service operated the route. Nor is it a count of tourists: residents and people travelling for work are in it. So these figures do not establish how many different people visited, or how fast that number grew.
We do not know how the count is made. The Directorate headed its table "No. of Tourist Visited A & N Islands"; the statistics directorate calls the same series "Arrival of Tourists"; and the Ministry of Tourism publishes it nationally as Domestic Tourist Visits. The Ministry says of its arrival figures that they "refer to the number of arrivals of tourists/visitors and not to the number of persons" — someone who makes several trips to the country is counted each time. That is about repeat trips, not about one trip across several islands. One possibility is a count made at more than one point of a trip — a guest recorded at Port Blair, again on Havelock, again on Neil. That is our guess, not something any of the three sources states.
The honest summary: more passengers are arriving — domestic-flight arrivals rose by about a sixth. The official tourist count rose far faster, and for three months it was higher than the number of passengers arriving on domestic flights. Why, the published figures do not say. Quote the 7.2 lakh figure by all means; just do not present it as a number of different people, because nothing published establishes that.
The foreign-visitor story runs the other way
While the domestic count grew past its pre-COVID level, foreign visits have not recovered: 11,497 in 2024 against 15,310 in 2017 — about a quarter lower. On the financial-year series the peak was 16,439 in 2018-19, against 10,550 in 2023-24. Foreigners are now under 2 percent of the count, down from about 3 percent. One likely reason is access. The Airports Authority's figures in the same statistics volume show no international traffic at Port Blair in 2022-23 or 2023-24, so in those years a foreign visitor who flew in arrived on a domestic flight. The first international traffic appears in 2024-25: 112 aircraft movements and 9,929 passengers. Our flight-data study has the domestic network.
For scale: the islands take just 0.02 percent of India's domestic tourist visits in the Ministry of Tourism's 2025 compendium (Table 4.1.2) — Uttar Pradesh alone records nine hundred times more, and only six of the 36 States and Union Territories in that table record fewer. 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, a foreign or domestic split), 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 / Directorate of Economics and Statistics / Ministry of Tourism data, compiled by Tropical Andamans (October 2026).
Sources and method
Monthly tables: the A&N Directorate of Tourism's statistics page, read from the Internet Archive capture of 27 August 2025; the archive holds 27 distinct captures from 7 June 2022, and the live page has been offline since early 2026. Financial-year series and airport figures: the A&N Directorate of Economics and Statistics' Basic Statistics 2024-25, Tables 21.4 and 20.1, live when we read them on 5 October 2026. National series: the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Data Compendium, Table 4.1.2 of the 2025 and 2024 editions, read from archive captures of 6 January 2026 and 5 July 2025 because the Ministry's own links answered "not found" on 5 October 2026; that table is sourced to the State and Union Territory tourism departments. 2017: the Administration's figures as reported by PTI on 25 November 2018. Air passengers: DGCA monthly figures for passengers arriving at Port Blair on domestic flights, via an open-licensed mirror — the same series behind our flight-data study; May 2024 is missing at source, and international flights are not in it. Nothing on this page is an estimate. One figure is derived — calendar 2022 — and it is marked as derived.
The numbers, answered straight
How many tourists visit the Andaman Islands each year?
The most recent official calendar-year figure is 7,21,894 for 2024 — 7,10,397 domestic and 11,497 foreign — from the A&N Directorate of Tourism's monthly tables. The Ministry of Tourism's national compendium prints the year only in rounded form, 0.710 million domestic and 0.011 million foreign tourist visits, which those counts round to. Nothing published says how the count is made, and it does not establish how many different people visited: in the last three months of 2024 it is higher than the number of passengers who arrived at Port Blair on domestic flights. The statistics directorate's financial-year series gives 3,57,453 for 2023-24. We could not find a 2025 figure in any official publication on 5 October 2026.
Why did Andaman tourist numbers double in 2024?
On paper they rose 117 percent, from 3.32 lakh in 2023 to 7.22 lakh in 2024. Passengers arriving on domestic flights rose about 16 percent over the eleven months for which both years have data. In October, November and December 2024 the official count is higher than the number of passengers arriving on domestic flights. We do not know how the count was made, and these figures do not establish how many different people came or how fast that number grew. One possibility is that a guest is counted at more than one point of a trip; that is our guess, not something any official source states.
What is the busiest month for Andaman tourism?
December, by a wide margin. December 2024 recorded 1,35,515 in the official tables — the highest month in the series, and about as many as the first nine months of 2022 put together. The quietest month is July, with 18,643 in 2024: a seven-fold swing. Passengers arriving on domestic flights peak in December and dip in July too, but far less sharply — about two and a half times in 2024.
How many foreign tourists visit the Andamans?
Fewer than before the pandemic: 11,497 in 2024 against 15,310 in 2017, about a quarter lower, while the domestic count grew. Foreigners are under 2 percent of the count, down from about 3 percent. One likely reason is access: the Airports Authority's table shows no international traffic at Port Blair in 2022-23 or 2023-24, and its first — 9,929 passengers — in 2024-25. Foreign visitor permits and rules are covered on our permits page.
Where are the 2025 Andaman tourism numbers?
We could not find them in any official publication when we checked on 5 October 2026. The Directorate of Tourism's statistics page went offline in early 2026 and the new tourism portal has no statistics page; the last archived capture, from August 2025, stops at December 2024. The statistics directorate's Basic Statistics 2024-25 stops at financial year 2023-24. A 2026 edition of the Ministry of Tourism's compendium was not on its website or in the Internet Archive. The press has carried a projection for 2025, not a count.
Where do these statistics come from?
Five sources, each named and linked on this page: the A&N Directorate of Tourism's monthly tables, read from the Internet Archive's capture of 27 August 2025 because the government page is offline; the A&N Directorate of Economics and Statistics' Basic Statistics 2024-25, for the financial-year series and the airport figures; the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Data Compendium, 2024 and 2025 editions; a PTI report of 25 November 2018 carrying the Administration's 2017 figures; and DGCA figures for passengers arriving on domestic flights, for the comparison. Nothing here is an estimate; the one derived figure, calendar 2022, is marked as derived.
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. Last checked 5 October 2026, when we added the statistics directorate's financial-year series, rebuilt the 2022 row from official sources, corrected two comparisons that had set twelve months against eleven (the 2024 ratio is 0.88, not 0.98, and domestic-flight arrivals rose about 16 percent, not 7 to 10), labelled the passenger series as domestic flights only, and cut the account of the 2024 count back to what the figures establish: they do not show how many different people visited, and the reason for the jump is not published. The page updates when the Ministry's next compendium appears, when any 2025 figure is published, or when the Directorate's statistics page returns. 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.