Up to 45 members of the travel trade, including 22 Aito delegates, Thomas Cook and Tui representatives and hotel reps, attended the meeting with four members of the high commission

If Only business development manager Neil Sealy, who was present, said much of the meeting was spent trying to understand when the changes, which require travellers to the country to provide biometric data including finger printing at one of 14 UK centres before their departure.

He added: “There were a lot of tour operators and agents present who were complaining about the communications from the high commission who’ve been giving out mixed messages.”

Sealy said ultimately the trade was hoping that India would add the UK to a list of countries whose citizens are permitted to supply the data on arrival.

Bharat Gadhoke, Aito membership manager, who also attended the meeting, added: “They need to make it absolutely clear what the current situation is right now.

“They need to decide by which date they will start implementing changes and they need to be advertising (that date) in good time.”

John Telfer, product and operations director at Explore, said: “The tour operators’ points of views were made, at times forcibly, to the High Commissioner at India House. To his credit, Ranjan Mathai listed sympathetically - and had read the survey of our customers and even digested the individual comments on why this would be a disaster.

“What happens now is in the lap of the gods - and Mr Mathai’s influence back home. What is absolutely clear is the need for information supplied by VFS to be accurate and that any changes in future have sufficient lead-in time, ideally 6 months.

“Although it is not yet necessary to attend in person to provide biometrics it is crystal clear that to avert a catastrophic drop in tourism then biometrics should be taken on arrival - coupled with an evisa - a scheme that works well for US citizens - the question is why not the UK?”