During her trip to India, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker celebrated the kickoff of the 2017 U.S. and India Travel and Tourism Partnership Year at a celebration hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry, with the support of Google, Brand USA, and United Airlines.

At the event, Secretary Pritzker emphasized that travel and tourism is not only crucial to economic growth and job creation, but also builds bridges between the American and Indian people.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing outbound travel and tourism markets, meaning that increasing Indian visitors to the U.S. is a strong opportunity to support U.S. travel and tourism exports. The World Tourism Organization has estimated that India will account for 50 million outbound tourists who will spend around $28 billion on their travel by 2020.

In 2015 the United States welcomed 1.13 million visitors from India who collectively spent more than $11.8 billion while experiencing the United States—making India as our seventh largest market for U.S. travel and tourism exports. Last year, India welcomed more than 1.2 million U.S. tourists, who accounted for 15 percent of the country’s total number of visitors. Both the U.S. and India stand to benefit economically from the expansion of this already-strong travel and tourism relationship.

To support of the U.S.-India 2017 Travel and Tourism Partnership, the Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office and the Government of India’s Ministry of Tourism will work together to share best practices on marketing, diversification of travel experiences, successful public-private partnerships, and other topics related to promoting travel and tourism.