Tourist rates have dropped 25 percent in India, following three violent attacks around the New Delhi area since December 2012.
The number of travelers has rapidly plummeted since the brutal rape and murder of a 23-year-old university student on a bus in the center of the capital. The nation was flabbergasted, shocked by such a rare crime. Hundreds of thousands of enraged Indians flooded the streets in protest, demanding female safety and more strict laws to keep these miscreants out.
Then, a Swiss woman was gang raped during a camping trip with her husband in a remote forest. Soon after, a young British woman reportedly had to leap from her hotel room window in Agra to avoid a sexual attack.
These events have devastated local morale, in addition to the country's number of travelers.
According to a study conducted by the New Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, 1,200 tour operators, female tourists in particular have been wary of a trip to India. Since December, women have been quickly canceling their flights, totaling to a 35 percent decrease in female visitation.
Almost 72 percent of the tour operators told the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry that most cancelled bookings have come from women tourists. Most of them were also British, American, Canadian, or Australian.
Some worry that the way in which tourists view India as a destination for travel has already changed for the worse, reports the AP, as wintertime-particularly between the months of November and March-are prime for tourism, and have already been seriously impacted. Most hope that fears will be assuaged by winter 2013, and that tourism rates will be restored once the dust settles.
India has not encountered this many back-to-back violent crimes in a long while, and is a country well known for its general safety against these kinds of sexual attacks.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
