Attract high spending, high quality international tourists to India: Railway min
The focus, at present, needs to be on attracting high spending, high quality international tourists to the country, opined Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal. The minister was addressing the audience after inaugurating the ‘first ever’ India Tourism Mart (ITM) on 17th September, 2018 at Ashok Hotel, New Delhi. “The profile of the international tourists needs to be studied in detail so that we can attract more tourists to the country. We should also ensure that the government should provide facilities which can attract high spending tourists,” he said.
The minister also said that religious tourism and sports tourism also has lot of potential in the country. Goyal also addressed the need to attract international entrepreneurs to the country. He also suggested to ease the legal procedures to attract more people to invest in infrastructure, which will help keep tourists for longer duration during their stay in the country.
“There are lot of hidden places in the country, which can be developed into tourist destinations. With small infrastructure interventions, we can take these hidden jewels to another level,” the minister said. It is also important to keep in my the growth of China as a tourist destination with its infrastructure advancements.
The Tourism Ministry is organising the India Tourism Mart (ITM) from 16th to 18th September, 2018 in partnership with the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) and with the support of State /UT Governments. “ITM will be an annual event hereafter in line with other International Tourism Marts and the Ministry will be releasing a calendar of ITM schedule for next 5 years so to ensure wider participation,” said Tourism Secretary Rashmi Verma.
The objective of the event is to create an annual Global Tourism Mart for India in line with major international travel marts being held in countries across the world. The Mart will provide a platform for all stakeholders in the tourism and hospitality industries to interact and transact business opportunities.
The ITM 2018 has participation of around 225 hosted international buyers and Media personnel across the world such as North America, West Europe, East Asia, Latin America, CIS countries etc. The international delegates from overseas markets will interact with Indian seller delegates and the buyers will include current buyers who are already selling India as well as potential buyers who are not selling India at present but have shown interest in the country. The event will also provide an opportunity to the buyers to see the world class tourism facilities available in our country such as Airports, Hotels, Tourist destinations, upcoming facilities, MICE facilities, possibility in the field of adventure tourism and other niche products.
Around 225 stalls will be provided to the sellers to enable them to interact with the buyers. These will include pavilion for States & Union Territories to showcase their unique tourism destinations and products. The B2B meetings between buyer and seller delegates will be held on 17th and 18th September, 2018.
The FAITH and State Governments will offer pre and post event FAM trips (Familiarization trips) for the buyer delegates from overseas.