Category Archives: MOT

Minister of Tourism G. Kishan Reddy has said that adventure tourism can be a gamechanger for the Indian tourism industry. “He added, “The government has framed a roadmap to develop it as a niche tourist product. Besides increasing tourist footfalls, adventure tourism will also foster local entrepreneurship.” A national board for adventure tourism has been constituted with the aim of implementation of the strategy to promote and develop adventure tourism in the country.

Highlighting the importance of Indian diaspora, G Kamala Vardhana Rao, Director General (Tourism), MoT, said it is important for them to talk about diverse tourism offerings of India in their daily places of work and interaction. He was speaking at the Italy edition of the Incredible India Reconnect 2022 virtual roadshow. Rao also mentioned how India as a destination offered the most economical and the most luxurious of tourist offerings at each of the 165-170 declared destinations. While also highlighting Italian tourist preferences towards India’s traditional culture, heritage, wildlife, and nature, he mentioned how India’s success story in vaccination has allowed for tourism recovery at a faster pace than was predicted by global thought leaders like UNWTO and WTTC. He reiterated on the importance of medical and wellness tourism and its popularity in Italy. Dilating on the fact, he mentioned how India was among the only countries in the world having a dedicated Ministry and action plan towards traditional knowledge systems.

As per the 3rd TSA (Tourism Satellite Account) for 2019-20, the contribution of tourism to employment of the country is 79.86 million, revealed G. Kishan Reddy, Minister of Tourism, Culture and DoNER in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. Tourism and Hospitality sector is one of the largest employments generating sector in India, he added.

The Ministry of Tourism has stated that the Swadesh Darshan 2.0 is aimed to enhance the experience of the tourists through a tourist-centric and destination-centric development approach to project planning and development. Its key principles are identified to achieve the vision of sustainable and responsible tourism. The intent is to enhance the contribution of tourism to the local economy and jobs.

In a report titled, ‘Role of Missions Globally for the growth of Tourism in India’ by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, it is recommended that the connectivity between the cities is required to enable the growth of MICE tourism in India.

In financial year 2021, the foreign direct investment equity inflow to the hotel and tourism industry in India was approximately 369 million U.S. dollars. This was a share of 2.21 percent of the FDI equity inflows into the service sector, revealed Statista.

Ajay Bhatt, Minister of State, Tourism, has said that tourism has a huge potential in the country. “We have endeavored to ensure that the tourists get the best facilities and infrastructure while they tour the country. Whenever we get a request regarding facilities, etc. from a concerned department, we ensure it is disposed of at the earliest. The police personnel are also sensitised to deal with the tourists,” he said.

Ministry of Tourism has shared that in line with the requests from stakeholders, they have decided that separate authorization letter for adventure tours can be issued to the existing approved tour operators who have already submitted all the additional documents related to adventure tours.

Ministry of Tourism has revamped Swadesh Darshan Scheme with 9 key reforms based on learnings from the implementations. The reforms include Broad basing of central sanctioning monitoring committee/ whole of Govt approach; strengthening state level institutional structure; strategic destination selection; detailed benchmarking/ gap analysis; focus on both hard and soft interventions; strengthening of project implementation and monitoring; sustainable operations and maintenance of destinations; focused promotion and destination marketing; and impact assessment and corrective measures.

Addressing the various stakeholders present at the 7th National Tourism Investors Meet 2022, Usha Padhee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, stressed on collaboration between tour operators and airlines for marketing Indian destinations. She said, “The government is working to increase the number of airports in the country to 200 by 2024 from 140 airports. Aviation and tourism are complimenting sectors. Air connectivity needs to be in tandem with what the tourism sector is doing.”