Not the backpacking crowd, but rather, the type that is willing to spend on a different travel experience.

While there are still plenty of Westerners seeking low-budget Eastern spirituality, India has recently started attracting a different class of visitors - men and women who won't be spending their nights bunking in a dingy room with a bunch of backpackers.

Americans, for example, who traditionally favour destinations in Europe, are increasingly venturing further.

New tourists have helped feed a boom in travel to India. The country is now almost as popular a destination for Americans as Spain.

Last year, about five million travellers visited India, nearly double from 2000, according to the Tourism Ministry. Visitors from the US accounted for 15.7 per cent of the total.

These include a large number of business travellers, wealthy retirees out to explore India from the comfortable confines of an air-conditioned luxury bus or train, and people of Indian origin eager to see their parents' - or grandparents' - homeland.

What has made India as attractive as Europe or South America for American travellers is a combination of a booming economy, an aggressive marketing campaign and what the Tourism Ministry describes as 'the diversity of our product'.

Most international airlines fly to New Delhi, making it a natural first destination for visitors to India.

The city is more than a sleepy administrative centre. Tourists can spend days gawking at the sprawling British colonial-era bungalows and exploring the crowded bylanes of Old Delhi, the capital of India's medieval Moghul rulers.

About 200km south of Delhi - close enough for a day trip - is Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, the white-marble monument to love.

It was built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan between 1632 and 1654 for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The monument, a must-see for most tourists, hosts about three million visitors a year.

A bit farther afield is Rajasthan, a region in western India famous for its fabulous splash of colours, medieval forts, ancient temples and camel safaris.

There, visitors can spend a night in one of the myriad palaces that have been converted to hotels, getting waited on hand and foot, much like the maharajas of bygone days.

But The New-Delhi-Agra-Rajasthan circuit known as the 'Golden Triangle' is just one corner of the country.

What might make India daunting - a vast, complicated country of 1.1 billion people where dozens of languages are spoken across an area of almost 2.6 million sq km - is also its biggest draw.

There are the hippie haunts of Varanasi and Rishikesh on the banks of the Ganges, sacred to millions of devout Hindus; the all-night raves on the beaches of Goa, a slice of India once ruled by Portugal; the luxury resorts on the sparkling backwaters of Kerala; the spartan yoga retreats and the bare-bones experience of Ayurvedic holistic healing in the Himalayas.