Making Tourism Everybody’s Business
Tourism sector is one of the largest employment generators in India and encourages inclusive growth of the lessadvantaged sections of the society. One of the objective of the Paryatan Parv is to spread the awareness about tourism as a major engine of economic growth and harness its direct and multiplier effect on employment and poverty eradication in a sustainable manner by active participation of all segments of the society. The core theme of Paryatan Parv is ‘Tourism for All’ as it is the endeavour to associate every section of the society and all stakeholders both in organised and unorganised sector for developing and promoting tourism in the Country. During the Paryatan Parv, sensitization programmes, skill development programmes and training programmes are being organised to inculcate appropriate tourism traits and knowledge amongst the service providers to enable them to act / work as Tourist Facilitators. Young men and women are being trained acts as catalyst/ resource persons in turn for similar effort. To gradually work towards a tourism-sensitive citizenry for college going students including those enrolled with youth associations and organisations. By creating awareness among the local communities about the importance of tourism for them in terms of increase in source of income, improved living standards and overall development of the area, promote local arts, cultural, handicrafts, cuisine etc. to generate livelihoods. Since the hospitality industry is facing a challenge of supply of trained manpower, the Paryatan Parv offers an opportunity to the people who are directly or indirectly associated with business of tourism to upgrade themselves and be part pf the industry in some way. To ensure that the efforts put up during the Paryatan Parv should not get diluted, the mission of the Ministry of Tourism, therefore, is not only to supply skilled hands as required by the Sector but to also upgrade / certify the skills of the existing service providers to reduce the skill gap. The Ministry of Tourism has put in place a strategy to reduce the skill gap in the Sector, including sanction of institutional infrastructure and launch of short duration training programmes for creating employable skills. Two flagship schemes of the Ministry of Tourism, Swadesh Darshan and Prasad although focuses on Infrastructure development of the circuits and sites, the salient feature of these schemes is comprehensive development of tourism which includes creating employment opportunities through active participation of local communities in a sustainable and inclusive manner through development of a “Responsible Tourism” initiative. Day 13 of Paryatan Parv across the country Highlight of day thirteen was a