Andhra Pradesh Govt. issues AP Tourism Trade (Registration and Facilitation) Guidelines 2020

The Andhra Pradesh government issued the ‘AP Tourism Trade (Registration and Facilitation) Guidelines, 2020’ to position the state as a premier tourist destination by improving the standards of services. The new guidelines are aimed at offering tourism services to world-class standards and strengthening the tourist ecosystem in the state by establishing better industry linkages.

Andhra Pradesh has emerged as one of the most-visited destinations in the country and the number of visitors has been growing significantly every year. To meet the growing demand and position the state as a premier tourist destination, it is important to improve the standards of tourism services offered. The state so far did not have a mechanism to register the tourism trade operators, which was essential for the maintenance of statistical information for planning and development.

The guidelines will encourage the improvement of standards and offer the best quality tourism services. They will provide a simple mechanism for registration of tourism trade similar to those in practice at the Union Ministry of Tourism and states such as Goa, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka. The AP Tourism Authority would now be able to collect statistical information from service providers and establish a database on tourism for the planning and development of tourism in the state.

This would also ensure linkages with tourism departments of other states, national and internationally-renowned travel and tourism players, travel and tourism-related associations and societies. Under the new guidelines, registration would now become mandatory for all tourism-related trade establishments and service providers to be eligible for any governmentsponsored initiatives, incentives, subsidies and schemes.