The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) held a National Tourism Conference with State Tourism Ministers in New Delhi yesterday (18 July).
The conference discussed the future strategies for realizing the full tourism potential of the country. The meeting was chaired by Union Tourism Minister Dr K Chiranjeevi.
The meeting assumed a significant importance as India’s tourism industry has been hit by natural calamities and incidents. “At such a time, we should all put our heads together and work out the best possible ways and strategies to develop and promote Indian tourism in the most effective manner. We all know and we all understand that tourism plays an important role in the economic development of the nation and for the employment generation in the country,” Chiranjeevi said in his opening remarks.
The conference launched a new campaign ‘I Respect Women’ with the Ministry of Tourism issuing badges in Hindi and 10 international languages. The conference also deliberate on various agenda items, which included the safety and security of tourists, Campaign Clean India to improve cleanliness at important tourist destinations, rationalization of taxes to make Indian tourism products competitive, bringing uniformity in the structure of road taxes and promote seamless travel, the timely implementation of tourism infrastructure projects, time bound issue of licences and no objection certificates for various tourism related services, provision of single window clearance for film shootings and MICE activities, promoting accessible and sustainable tourism and improving co-ordination between various state government and Union Territory Administrations for promoting intra-regional tourism.
The conference has adopted the following resolutions:
- Ensure the safety and security of tourists, especially women. Each department will consider setting up a special force such as a Tourist Police, where it does not exist at present, either by taking few companies on deputation from the Police department or by engaging ex-servicemen or home guards. In case of any unfortunate incident involving a tourist, each department will ensure that immediate action is taken to investigate the crime and undertake speedy trials to bring the culprits to book, while in the case of incident of assault on any tourists, the department will ensure immediate post-traumatic help to the victim respecting his/her privacy and showing utmost sensitivity.
- To sensitise all stakeholders including the community through various electronic and print campaigns towards the need of being sensitive to the needs of tourists and being helpful.
- Take necessary steps to inculcate proper values in children by arranging at least one lecture each every year in every class on the importance of sensitivity to tourists and cleanliness of public areas.
- Ensure cleanliness at various tourism destinations, inter-alia, by ensuring the removal of garbage at regular intervals, declaring polythene and garbage free zones and proving toilets to stop open defecation. Establish toilet facilities along roads leading to important tourist destinations utilising infrastructure like petrol pumps, dhabas, panchayat and other public buildings by utilising services of unemployed youth.
- Set up a coordination mechanism with the concerned municipality/local body to monitor the state of cleanliness at various tourist destinations on regular basis.
- Tourism destination and traffic crossing beggar free, by making help zones.
The conference was also attended by 22 National Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Industry Associations.