Union Tourism Minister G. Kishan Reddy launched important initiatives for tourism promotion in the country in the presence of MoS, Tourism Ajay Bhatt. He launched a unique initiative ‘Best Tourism Village Competition Portal’ and Rural Tourism Portal. The Global Tourism Investor Summit 2023 portal was also launched on the occasion.
The Ministry of Tourism is organizing 1st Global Tourism Investors’ Summit during 17-19 May 2023 to showcase investible projects and opportunities in tourism and hospitality sector in India to domestic and international investors. This is being organised in the backdrop of India’s G20 Presidency this year.
India is also observing ‘Visit India Year 2023’ on which a presentation was made. In order to develop tourism in mission mode and to accelerate India’s rise towards world leadership in tourism sector, the Ministry of Tourism has launched Visit India Year 2023. It is a unique, collective movement that invites the world to explore India during 2023 – a historical year of India’s G20 presidency as well as grand celebrations of India@75 Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
On the occasion, the Union Minister of Tourism, Reddy also interacted with Media on several key achievements of the Ministry of Tourism during the last few years and future strategy for promoting tourism in the country.
He highlighted the whole of government approach followed by the Government in promoting and developing tourism sector in the country with focus on connectivity, civic infrastructure, tourist amenities and soft infrastructure.
The Union Minister further said that in 2014, 76.8 lakh foreign tourists had come to India and in 2019 this number stood at 1.09 crore before Covid. Despite tourism being the most affected sector due to Covid, but still in 2022 this number has increased to 61 lakh. Union Minister also said that one crore foreign tourists are expected to visit India this year.
Reddy also spoke about the phenomenal spurt in domestic tourism. Giving the example of Jammu and Kashmir, he said that in 2022, J&K received a staggering 1.84 cr tourists breaking all previous records since Independence.
