Experience India whichever way you want to. That is the essence of the new campaign launched by the Ministry of Tourism at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London.
'We want to focus both on international and domestic tourists,' Chiranjeevi, the new Union Minister of Tourism, told Millennium Post. With that in mind, the two campaigns ‘Find What you Seek’ and ‘Go Beyond’ are targeted at international and domestic tourists, respectively. The Go Beyond campaign focuses on lesser known destinations. He hopes that the increase in the number of tourists will increase tourism's contribution to the GDP to 12% and provide employment to at least 25 million people.
'The allocation to tourism has increased by three fourth and we are hoping to achieve all this during the 12th five year plan by 2016,' he further said. India registered 6.31 million Foreign Tourist Arrivals with an annual growth of 9.2% over the previous year. Last year's tourist arrivals constituted only 0.64% of the World Tourist Arrivals and the minister wants to up this to 1%.
The charismatic actor-politician is keen on leisure and sports tourism. 'We have the longest shoreline. We should make use of that,' he told Millennium Post. Another key area for him is 'rural tourism'. 'That is one area that interests foreigners a lot. We have a variety of art, music, cultures, dance and food to showcase,' he pointed out.
'One cannot finish India at one go. Our diversified cultural and geopolitical scenario means one has never seen enough,' said Chiranjeevi. And of course, films are never far from his mind. So like Bollywood gets support to shoot and showcase different foreign locales (like Spain was shown in Zindagi na Milegi Dobara), Chiranjeevi also plans to extend that support to film industries worldwide. 'My effort would be to make tourism India's main economic and political agenda taking all state governments, Union Territories, administrations and stakeholders on board and establish India as a round the year destination,' he said.
Wellness and medical tourism, cruise tourism, adventure and wildlife tourism, film tourism, MICE tourism and sports tourism are also on his radar. The minister wants to make India an affordable destination and ease visa regime and expand Visa on Arrival Scheme.
He also announced that India will be hosting the next meeting of UNWTO regional commissions for South Asia and Far East and Pacific in April-May next year in Hyderabad.
'We want to focus both on international and domestic tourists,' Chiranjeevi, the new Union Minister of Tourism, told Millennium Post. With that in mind, the two campaigns ‘Find What you Seek’ and ‘Go Beyond’ are targeted at international and domestic tourists, respectively. The Go Beyond campaign focuses on lesser known destinations. He hopes that the increase in the number of tourists will increase tourism's contribution to the GDP to 12% and provide employment to at least 25 million people.
'The allocation to tourism has increased by three fourth and we are hoping to achieve all this during the 12th five year plan by 2016,' he further said. India registered 6.31 million Foreign Tourist Arrivals with an annual growth of 9.2% over the previous year. Last year's tourist arrivals constituted only 0.64% of the World Tourist Arrivals and the minister wants to up this to 1%.
The charismatic actor-politician is keen on leisure and sports tourism. 'We have the longest shoreline. We should make use of that,' he told Millennium Post. Another key area for him is 'rural tourism'. 'That is one area that interests foreigners a lot. We have a variety of art, music, cultures, dance and food to showcase,' he pointed out.
'One cannot finish India at one go. Our diversified cultural and geopolitical scenario means one has never seen enough,' said Chiranjeevi. And of course, films are never far from his mind. So like Bollywood gets support to shoot and showcase different foreign locales (like Spain was shown in Zindagi na Milegi Dobara), Chiranjeevi also plans to extend that support to film industries worldwide. 'My effort would be to make tourism India's main economic and political agenda taking all state governments, Union Territories, administrations and stakeholders on board and establish India as a round the year destination,' he said.
Wellness and medical tourism, cruise tourism, adventure and wildlife tourism, film tourism, MICE tourism and sports tourism are also on his radar. The minister wants to make India an affordable destination and ease visa regime and expand Visa on Arrival Scheme.
He also announced that India will be hosting the next meeting of UNWTO regional commissions for South Asia and Far East and Pacific in April-May next year in Hyderabad.