New Delhi, July 29: The Centre plans to attract 10 million foreign visitors and build a million hotel rooms by 2011.

The country was a significant tourist attraction in 2006 — there were 4.43 million registered foreign tourist arrivals in the year against 3.92 million in 2005, an increase of 14.2 per cent.

“The country needs to achieve an international visitor level of 10 million at the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan. It also needs to increase approved quality accommodation units. There are one lakh such rooms, which should be increased to two lakh by 2011,” said a report by a working group on tourism for the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

Subhash Goyal, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators, said, “If we implement the suggestions submitted by the ministry of tourism, it will not be difficult to attract 10 million tourists”.

If countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore can receive 10 million tourists and China can get more than 35 million visitors a year, why not India?” said Goyal.

The report suggested a number of measures to develop the tourism industry. It said concentrating on countries such as South Africa, Israel, Spain, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil and Argentina would help India increase its tourist arrivals.

Few tourists come to India from these countries, so they offer a high growth potential, the report said.

The country must also reduce the seasonality in international tourist arrivals by ensuring that the drop in lean season is not more than 15 per cent of the annual average, it added.

Promotion of business-related travel by building convention centres of international standards in major cities or tourist centres is also one of the measures in the report. Moreover, the country needs to prepare strategies to increase per capita expenditure on shopping.