Time to walk the talk

The

Ministry of Tourism is going full throttle with all the projects started since Mr Sahai took office as Union Minister for Tourism. HunarSeRozgarTakYojna, Clean India Campaign, single-window permissions etc are some of the most important initiatives that have made the mark. This seems to be an exciting time and you can feel the vitality when Mr. Sahai speaks so knowledgeably about the industry. He definitely has his finger on the pulse!

At the recently-held Great Domestic Tourism Bazar, Sahai had highlighted the initiatives being worked out at the Centre. For instance, Film Tourism holds great potential. Lately, movies like Zindagi Na MilegiDobara, Don-2 and Cocktail had been instrumental in increasing tourism greatly to Spain, Germany and South Africa respectively. Hence, the Ministry of Tourism is working out the modalities to create a single-window for permission to shoot films in India.

“We also need to aggressively tap the Middle East, which has a huge potential for inbound traffic into India. I would like to help states that don’t have grants, so that we can double the growth of FTAs.” He went on to add, “Tourism is surviving in India currently because of domestic tourism. States and tour operators must work together to invest in wellness projects, building clean budget hotels and motivate people to spend weekends and holidays within the states.”

Trade bodies like FICCI and others should play a pivotal role in sensitising and motivating states to augment budget hotels. One faster way can be allowing the private sector to run budget hotels on properties owned by the government, which otherwise are clearly not fully utilised and only serve as various guest houses all over the nation. Most importantly, they need to take the PPP path for revenue generation.

Then, why are we not taking full advantage of a government that is so proactive?

Here, the advice of Mr Khwaja, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, comes handy for all stakeholders, “Do not just talk the talk, but walk the talk, with one spirit.”