New Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) More than 800 visas on arrival (VoA) were issued to foreign tourists in India last month, an official statement said Friday.


"In July 2011, a total of 820 VoAs were issued to foreign tourists. In June the number of VoAs issued was 770," a tourism ministry statement said.

The number of VoAs issued were Indonesia (174), Singapore (135), the Philippines (131), New Zealand (158), Japan (152), Finland (42), Vietnam (15), Myanmar (7), Luxembourg (2) and Cambodia (4).

As a measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the government launched the VoA scheme in January 2010 for tourists of five countries - Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore.

The scheme was later extended to six more countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar.

According to the statement, a total number of 6,594 VoAs were issued in January-July, 2011.

The countrywise break-up of the VoAs was New Zealand (1,353), Japan (1,199), the Philippines (1,093), Singapore (1,026), Indonesia (1,052), Finland (653), Cambodia (73), Vietnam (66), Myanmar (43), Luxembourg (34) and Laos (2).