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India’s Digital Tourism Stack: Public-Private Collaborations and Future Growth

In 2024, India recorded around 2.95 billion domestic tourist visits and 9.95 million foreign tourist arrivals.^{1, 2} From FY23 to FY24, tourism contributed an estimated INR15.73 lakh crore (USD170 billion) to India’s gross domestic product (“GDP”), accounting for 5.22% of the economy and supporting 84.6 million direct and indirect jobs.³ The Indian tourism sector is a major engine of economic growth, employment and services-led consumption, and the government is keen to leverage data and technology tools to transform it.⁴ However, the tourism ecosystem remains highly fragmented across levels of government and across the public and private sectors, and the traveller experience is not as seamless as it should be, leading to people opting for other destinations. Travellers in India often have to navigate multiple apps, websites, payment systems and administrative processes to complete what should be a single, connected journey.

In response, India’s Ministry of Tourism has adopted two market-specific, thematic and digitally enabled initiatives to promote tourism: Incredible India 2.0, a global campaign to promote tourism in key international markets, and Swadesh Darshan 2.0, which aims to stimulate tourism through domestic infrastructure and destination development.^{5, 6} The government is working on operationalising the National Digital Tourism Stack (“Digital Tourism Stack”) to connect these two programmes and enable seamless digital payments across all travel, transit, shopping and hospitality touchpoints, with a unified data architecture and digital public infrastructure (“DPI”) framework.⁷

India’s Digital Tourism Vision

India’s tourism recovery is following the institutional playbook that transformed payments, i.e., extending DPI into a major services sector by extending it to all the transaction touchpoints that a traveller/tourist experiences, augmented with data analytics and AI on the consumer side. The India Digital Tourism Stack integrates existing digital infrastructure and platforms such as the United Payments Interface (“UPI”), DigiLocker, DigiYatra and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (“ONDC”), with distinct interventions spanning identification, entry, booking, payments and recommendations across the tourist journey (see below).

Building Block	Strategic Function
DigiYatra	Facial-recognition airport processing, for inbound entry and exit
ONDC Tourism Layer	Open discovery network extending visibility to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (“MSMEs”), homestays and heritage operators alongside large platforms
UPI One World	UPI payment wallet for foreign visitors without an Indian bank account
National Destination Digital Knowledge Grid	Structured data on heritage and cultural assets (Union Budget 2026–2027), a content layer for AI-driven trip planning

Each of these blocks is already demonstrating that India’s DPI can translate into practical gains for the tourism ecosystem. Global networks are directly integrating into ONDC’s tourism layer to reach hospitality and tourism sector MSMEs that are being aggregated through the ONDC digital platform. The National Destination Digital Knowledge Grid is combining spatial-computing trip-planning tools with tourism data and destination information with consumer and generative AI interfaces.

Since 2016, UPI has been acting as an open, interoperable protocol for instant, real-time payments connecting banks and financial technology companies on shared digital rails, bringing micro and small merchants within the ambit of a national digital payment network. Within 10 years of its launch, in August 2026, UPI processed 24.51 billion transactions worth INR29.82 lakh crore (USD350 billion), and is a cornerstone of India’s DPI use-case, with a compelling application in aggregating all MSME establishments that cater to travellers and tourists, domestic and foreign, across the country.⁸ With UPI’s growing international acceptance, this has extended to outbound Indian tourists travelling to 11 countries (and this is a growing list).⁹

Digital Transformation Implications for Businesses

There are India-specific challenges in destination discovery, payment access, and visibility for smaller tourism assets. UN Tourism’s 2026 World Tourism Day theme, “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism,” has practical relevance for India.¹⁰ Digital infrastructure can complement marketing, circuit development and physical upgrades by improving access, coordination and scale. Its impact will depend on public-private co-creation: open public standards combined with corporate expertise in user experience, distribution, security, data and investment can convert connectivity into bookings, local income, formalisation and more geographically distributed tourism spending. Early engagement with open protocols could support complementary roles across four sectors:

Global online travel agencies (“OTAs”) and travel distribution platforms: ONDC’s standardised framework can help platforms identify and onboard regional inventory more efficiently, expanding destination choice while lowering acquisition costs for smaller operators. OTAs can convert international interest into verified bookings and direct demand toward local businesses and growth for MSMEs in India.

Global payment networks and card schemes: Integration with services such as UPI One World can widen payment choice and acceptance for foreign visitors, including at small merchants. Global networks can add cross-border reach, security, fraud management and data insights, while public infrastructure can extend digital access. This complementary model can support visitor confidence, merchant revenues and more inclusive tourism growth.

Hospitality chains and asset owners: Better digital discoverability can improve customer acquisition and channel choice for heritage, boutique and mid-scale properties. Greater visibility can also support investment, job creation and tourism-led growth in tier-2, tier-3 and rural destinations.

AI platforms and travel technology providers: Access to authoritative, tech-driven and machine-readable destination data through the National Destination Digital Knowledge Grid can enable more accurate, culturally grounded and bookable itineraries. This may improve destination discovery while giving smaller locations greater representation in global search and planning tools.

Just as UPI rewired retail payments, India's Digital Tourism Stack is an attempt to rewire inbound discovery and transactions. The Government of India’s push timed with World Tourism Day 2026 signals it as a stated national priority, not a pilot. For global travel, payments and hospitality businesses, the strategic takeaway is to treat India's tourism DPI as infrastructure to channel resources into early, not a market shift to watch from the sidelines.

Public-Private Priorities for Tourism, Revenue and Job Growth

Three mutually reinforcing interventions can help transform India’s fragmented tourism ecosystem into an integrated, data-driven engine of growth, revenue and jobs. First, government and industry should build an AI-ready digital inventory of tourism assets across national, state, district and destination levels, using common standards and continuously verified, machine-readable information to make local experiences more discoverable. Second, destination-level integrated tourist cards can bundle transport, accommodation, shopping and attractions into convenient digital passes, while using real-time data to personalise itineraries, manage visitor flows and generate actionable insights on movement and spending. Third, a recurring government–industry tourism economy study can measure tourism’s contribution, diagnose destination-specific constraints and opportunities, and translate the data into prioritised investments, measurable outcomes and clearly assigned responsibilities.

AI-Ready Destination Discovery and Experience Infrastructure: As AI increasingly becomes the primary interface through which travellers discover, compare and assemble experiences, India should build an AI-ready digital inventory of its tourism assets at the national, state, district and destination levels. Government, industry and local tourism stakeholders should systematically identify and digitally document each destination’s distinctive attractions and experiences, supported by the rich, structured and up-to-date information that AI-powered travel services need to recommend and bundle experiences effectively. Government and industry should jointly develop the data standards, digital infrastructure, local capacity and training mechanisms required to continuously create, verify and maintain this information, with states and districts playing an active role in onboarding local tourism businesses and communities.

Destination-level Innovation: Integrated Tourist Cards: Built on top of India’s Digital Tourism Stack, integrated tourist cards, such as Delhi Three-Day Card, Mumbai City Card or Rajasthan 10-Day Circuit Card, modelled on Rome's Tourist Card, could bundle transit, discounted stays and shopping, and skip-the-line access to museums and Archaeological Survey of India/heritage monuments into a single digital pass. Layering in destination data weather, seasonal demand and real-time traffic overlays would let the card dynamically recommend itineraries and redirect visitor flow away from peak-hour congestion at sites like the Taj Mahal or Red Fort. Beyond visitor convenience, the card could generate granular data on movement, dwell time and spend, giving state tourism boards and industry a live dataset for demand forecasting and infrastructure planning, turning the Digital Tourism Stack from shared plumbing into a visible, revenue-generating consumer product.

Government–Industry Tourism Economy Study: The Central Government, in partnership with state governments and industry, should establish a national, recurring tourism economy study to create a comprehensive, data-driven view of tourism’s economic contribution and its potential for growth. The study should quantify tourism’s direct, indirect and induced contribution to GDP, employment, visitor spending, revenues and local economic value creation at the national, state and district levels, while tracking performance and structural shifts over time. The initiative should bring together stakeholders across the entire tourism ecosystem and integrate public-sector, industry and destination-level data. Beyond measuring economic contribution, the study should diagnose destination-specific constraints and opportunities. The primary goal should be to move beyond measurement to become an action-oriented policy and investment tool, translating evidence into a prioritised set of interventions, measurable outcomes and clearly assigned responsibilities for government and industry.

India’s Digital Tourism Stack has the potential to translate the country’s digital infrastructure into a more connected, inclusive and commercially productive tourism economy. By linking discovery, bookings, payments and destination services through interoperable digital systems, India can deliver more seamless traveller experiences, expand market access for local enterprises and enable data-driven destination management. Realising this potential will depend on sustained public-private collaboration, common standards for data sharing and a focus on translating technological capabilities into tangible outcomes for travellers, businesses and destinations.

Footnotes:

1. Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, “India as a Tourism Hub: Building a Globally Competitive, Inclusive and Sustainable Visitor Economy” (31 July 2026).

2: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “Arrivals of Foreign Tourists” (29 Jan. 2026).

3: Ministry of Tourism, supra note 1.

4: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “Tourism as a Key Driver for Employment and Growth Budget 2025–26 Focuses on Infrastructure, Medical Tourism, and Heritage Conservation” (4 Feb. 2025).

5: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “Incredible India 2.0 Initiative” (2 Feb. 2026).

6: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “Swadesh Darshan 2.0 Scheme” (31 July 2025).

7: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “World Tourism Day 2026: India’s tourism growth and the digital transformation” (26 Sept. 2026).

8: Manikandan, Ashwin, “India opens door to fees on large payments made via UPI system,” Reuters (14 Sept. 2026).

9: Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Press Release, “UPI: Transforming India’s Payment Landscape” (24 Aug. 2026).

10: UN Tourism, “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism: World Tourism Day 2026” (n.d.).

The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, Inc., its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals.