British Travelers to India Advised To Use Cards Instead of Cash

Foreign travelers to India are advised to use their debit or credit cards in purchasing amenities and products because of the current crisis the country's facing from demonetization.

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi recently announced a sudden declaration for demonetization and stated that all 500 and 100 Rupee notes will be invalid. Because of this, Indians formed long queue at ATMs and Banks to exchange their money.

The Indian government is not producing nearly as much new Rupee notes as the public demanded resulting to disorder and confusion. ATMs only allow not more than 2500 Rupees per card to withdraw and most of the time these ATMs are empty or filled late in the day.

Travelers are advised not to accept denominators higher than a hundred or better use cards for transactions to avoid the long queues.

"If you're exchanging money at a bank, take photo ID along with a copy of it... foreign tourists will be able to exchange foreign currency or old notes of not more than 5000 Rupees into legal tender until 24 November," stated by their government website.

The prime minister institutes this decision to break corruption and black market money. Half the population of India don't have a bank account as it is a cash-dominated country. Because of this, black market of producing fake money is predominant here.

According to the Times of India, since the demonetization declaration of the prime minister, travelers started to trickle down and tourism is affected. The airlines' sector booking a day fall by 10%.

"We were looking at promotional fares from February due to low season then. But because of the dip in travel demand caused by demonetisation, we may start the offers from December to entice demand from Jaipur, Amritsar to Singapore," stated Scoot head Bharath Mahadevan.

Interviewed tourists of BBC who are currently spending their time in India expressed disappointment and frustration, one saying that it is like "India's Brexit and Trump rolled into one". The problems faced by these tourists include lack of cash withdrawals, restaurants and bars only accept cash, a small percentage of establishments accept Visa cards, and seeing local small traders losing their business.