India bids for Chinese investments in tourism

BEIJING: In a bid to attract Chinese investments to improve tourism infrastructure, India on Saturday highlighted investment opportunities in its fast developing hospitality sector and announced to revamp its tourism office here for drawing more tourists from China.

An official will soon be appointed to head the ‘ Incredible India’ tourism office as the post was vacant for almost a year, Tourism Secretary Vinod Zutshi told PTI here from Shanghai, where he attended events conducted by his ministry along with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to highlight investment opportunities in India’s fast developing tourism sector. India has stepped up its campaign to attract Chinese tourists by extending e-visas facility.

Special events

Special events were organised in Shanghai to scout for Chinese investments in India’s tourism sector and to campaign for more tourists’ arrival specially to the Buddhist Circuit which evoked considerable interest in China.

Zutshi invited Chinese investors and tourism officials to take part in the Incredible India investor tourism summit to be held from September 21-23 in which all the central and state tourism officials will take part with proposals for various projects.

Last year, over three lakh tourists visited India and officials said the numbers were steadily on the rise since the e-visa scheme was extended.