Tourism must become part and parcel of our national agenda..

Considering the huge socio-economic growth potential of the tourism industry, emerging economies like India must strive to make tourism part and parcel of their national agenda, opined Kumari Selja, Union Minister for Tourism. The Minister was speaking at a seminar on ‘Economic Imperative of Tourism’ organised recently by World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) – India Initiative in New Delhi.

The seminar was attended by eminent panelists including David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC; Jean-Claude Baumgarten, Vice-Chairman, WTTC; Marcio Favilla L de Paula, Executive Director, UNWTO; Sheila YP Leong, Deputy Chief Executive & Head – Office of Marketing Services, PATA; Arjun Sharma, Chairperson, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) – India Initiative; Dr Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance; and RH Khwaja, Secretary – Tourism, Government of India.

At the seminar Selja suggested that her Ministry has been striving hard to create synergies between the government and tourism industry at large to remove all obstacles on the way to realise the vast untapped potential in the tourism sector in the country.  She also informed that her Ministry would try to set up a meeting of the tourism industry captains with the Prime Minister soon to help push various demands of the industry at the highest level.

Elaborating on the various initiatives of the tourism department, Selja said that the Visa on Arrival (VoA) scheme for five countries-- Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore introduced in January 1, 2010 has been successful and the facility will be extended to five countries from the East like Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam from next year.  She hopes that steps like this would go a long way in improving travel from these countries to India. Mulling on the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) to make tourism development sustainable, the Minister said that the Code of Conduct for Safe and Honourable Tourism enunciated by MoT had received support from all the private stakeholders. She urged the industry to take the local community along and make them partners to make the socio-economic growth more inclusive.

Selja further mentioned that MoT will soon undertake an audit of the Rural Tourism projects in the country so that the real objective of ‘Rural Tourism’ initiatives is not lost. Considering the paucity of budget accommodation in the country, she said that MoT is in the process of formulating a policy for budget hotels in the country to lure more investments into the sector.

Source=travelbizmonitor