Travel News September 2007

Policy

Sapphire valley to be brought on country's tourism map: Azad
Tourists to get fast clearance at airports
India targets 10 mn tourist inflow by 2010: Union Tourism Minister
Government mulling visa on arrival for tourists
Southern India tourism grid to be formed

Sapphire valley to be brought on country's tourism map: Azad
August 24, 2007

The Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to bring the world famous Sapphire valley at Paddar in Kishtwar district on the country's tourist map. Keeping in view the vast potential for promotion of pilgrim and adventure tourism in Paddar, steps would be taken to bring it on the tourism map of the country soon, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

Paddar valley is popular across the world for blue Sapphire and houses sapphire mines in Pir Panchal ranges.

Paddar can be a perfect tourist destinations with high altitude meadow lands, snow-capped mountains, low lines glaciers, ice water rivers and high degree of communal harmony among the people living in the area, he said while addressing a gathering at Machail village.

Source: PTI via Economic Times

Tourists to get fast clearance at airports
August 24, 2007

Faster clearance at the immigration counters, being pursued hotly by the tourism and hospitality industry to facilitate quick and trouble free arrival of foreign travellers, may well be on the cards soon.

Coaxed continuously by the Tourism Ministry, the key ministries of External Affairs, Home Affairs and the Dept of Information Technology (DIT) are now working together to put in place a new IT-driven mechanism that will allow fast clearance to foreign passengers at the immigration counters, thus cutting the waiting time from 90 minutes to barely 10 minutes.

Earlier, the initiatives of the Tourism Ministry to get clearance for visa on arrival for 16 favoured countries were scuttled by the Union Home Ministry on the adverse comments by the Intelligence Bureau.

According to top official sources, concerns of both the Tourism and the Home Ministries can now be taken care by installing a revolutionary mechanism called the Adverse Person Information System (APIS) that would not only take care of the worries of the Intelligence Bureau but would also allow faster clearance to foreign tourists at the airports.

To make the mechanism work, the DIT is working hard to connect all the Indian missions and embassies abroad and all the Indian airports with a high grade computer network that would pass on information about India-bound passengers on a daily basis.

According to World Tourism & Travel Council forecast, India could become a favoured destination of foreign tourists if it manages to install proper systems in place and would be able to contribute $3 billion gross foreign exchange receipts and give employment to over 25 million people in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Source: Newindpress.com

India targets 10 mn tourist inflow by 2010: Union Tourism Minister
August 18, 2007

India expects a tourist inflow of around 10 million in 2010 when it will host the commonwealth games, Union Tourism Minister Ambika Soni said here today.

"We are looking at the hotel industry to come up to the challenge," she said, adding at least 1.5 lakh more rooms in all categories of hotels are required to cater to the increased tourist inflow.

The country's tourism sector was growing steadily with 3.92 million tourist inflow in 2005 and 4.43 million in 2006, the minister said and expressed confidence that the inflow would touch the five million mark in 2007.

With specialised types of tourism becoming a craze throughout the world, India is coming up with Dubai-type shopping tourism facilities at several places besides focusing on health tourism. At least four such destinations would come up soon and another is likely in West Bengal if the infrastructure is ready by the end of 2007, Soni said.

Noida in Uttar Pradesh with world class facilities, Shilpagram near Hyderabad, permanent art and crafts fair at Bhubaneswar and another at Aurangabad near Ajanta-Ellora in Maharashtra are the shopping tourism destinations coming up.

Source: Zeenews via Google

Government mulling visa on arrival for tourists
August 18, 2007

Visa on arrival could be a reality soon with the Union Tourism ministry keen on it to ensure more foreign tourist arrivals.

"We are working on providing visa on arrival to tourists and will take a decision after discussing the matter with the Union Home ministry," Union Tourism Minister Ambika Soni said here on Saturday. "After the modernisation of different international airports in the country, I hope we shall also be able to provide visa on arrival facilities," she said.

Currently countries like Thailand provide visa on arrival to tourists from selected countries.

Source: PTI via Economic Times

Southern India tourism grid to be formed
August 12, 2007

A 'Southern India tourism grid' will be formed by the four Southern states and the union territory of Puducherry for the integrated and efficient promotion of tourism.

A joint declaration in this regard was made at the third meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII-southern region) on 'building southern synergies and Tourism colloqium' organised by the CII here on Saturday.

Reduction of disparities in state taxes like luxury tax, road tax on vehicles and entertainment tax, cooperation among the states in training manpower and human resource development and building of infrastructure are highlights of the declaration, a CII press release said.

States would also exchange more information about tourism and allied sectors, promote integrated tourism circuits by identifying and developing destinations with geographical proximity, launch Eastern and Western coastal cruises and give a fillip to medical tourism.

Improved connectivity among capital cities to international locations, sharing networking of booking offices, marketing agents, promotion of theme based tour programmes like heritage and pilgrimage tourism are also planned.

The governments would promote local community participation in decision making, planning, development and environment protection. Private sector participation would be sought to develop tourism related infrastructure and marketing the Grid

Source: Economic Times