UK Sangma
In 2008 at the meet of the tourism ministers of Northeastern states in Gangtok, the participants deliberated and came to the conclusion that for some reason, the Northeast was unable to jump into the bandwagon of the campaign known as Incredible India. That campaign was a huge success and we had a great inflow of foreign tourists in the country but they only went to places like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, for some reason the North East was left out. But then there were many reasons for this as things like Inner Line Permits needed to be secured. It also suffered from lack of infrastructure, lack of information and lack of a campaign. Even though most of the states had their own tourism master plan, there was no common tourism master plan for the North East, so the ministers decided that we should all come up with a tourism master plan for the region. And then the identified circuits as per the master plan should be developed. Also, we need to remember that tour operators form a very important part of our campaign and they play a significant role in popularising tourism spots of the region.