One of Incredible India’s greatest success stories in recent times is undoubtedly Gujarat Tourism. Having recorded 16 per cent annual growth rate, higher than the national average, it is little surprise that the state is optimistic about this year as well. To serve these increasing numbers, Vipul Mittra, Principal Secretary to Govt of Gujarat (Tourism, Civil Aviation & Pilgrimage), revealed that the state will need an additional one lakh rooms in the next five years. “In 2011-12, the total number of tourists was 223.6 lakhs, out of which 218.95 lakh were Indian and 4.06 lakh were foreign tourist. The gross tourist flow during the year 2012-13 was 254.09 lakh which is 13.62 per cent higher than the flow in 2011-12, out of which 183.24 were Indian tourists and rest was foreigners. Many medium to big hotel chains have done their studies and assessments for investing in Gujarat. Many big brands like Hyatt, Holiday Inn Express and Ramada, among others have already come up. And as per an estimate, Gujarat needs another one lakh rooms in the next five years,” he stated.
Addressing the media in a recent press conference in Mumbai, Saurabh Patel, Tourism Minister, Gujarat opined, “Domestic tourism is definitely outpacing the international tourism growth in India and Gujarat also strongly believes that if domestic tourism grows then international tourism will automatically flow in. We will continue to aggressively market Gujarat as a tourist destination in India as well as abroad.”
Patel attributed Gujarat’s success in the tourism sector to the ‘Khushboo Gujarat Ki’ campaign. “Over the years, the campaign is attracting an increasing number of tourists, both domestic and inbound. The Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL) is focusing on attracting travellers from across India.” Mittra further mentioned that there has been a significant increase in the budget for this year which will be utilised for infrastructure development as well as continuing the brand building exercise. “Gujarat does participate in domestic and selected international travel marts. We also do our own road shows in different parts of the country,” he added.
Speaking about the state’s focus for tourism promotion this year, Mittra added that they plan to focus more on adventure tourism, heritage tourism, cruise tourism and caravan tourism. “Bird watching is a niche segment which we started a few years back and has been well received. We will celebrate the Saputara Monsoon festival again, as well as festivals such as Navratri, International Kite Festival, Rann Utsav, International Bird Watchers’ conference, Tarnetar Fair and so on which attract tourists from all across the country and abroad. Religious tourism one of the important segments, and we will promote it through various media,” he stated.
Mittra further revealed that Gujarat Tourism has a yearlong calendar of roadshows which would be held across all the major markets. The state will also participate in various trade-shows such as ITM, TTF and IITE, among others.
