The state government is all set to launch its tourism policy by the end of this month. The contours of the draft tourism policy has more or less been finalised and after the vetting of the same by the chief minister this will be announced at the end of this month.
Announcing this, Atri Bhattacharya, state home and principal secretary of tourism said,”The Draft tourism policy has been finalised. However, as the tourism is a pet project of the chief minister it will be announced in consultation with her.”
Elaborating on the Destination East-the Eastern India’s largest Travel Mart which will be co-organised by the CII and the state tourism department at the newly-built convention Centre, at Rajarhat between 18 and 19 January will focus on investment in the tourism sector.
“The current investment in the sector is Rs 3,600 crore. And the focus will be to increase the investment to about Rs 5,500 crore in the next five years,” said Manish Jain, secretary Tourism.
Dwelling on the state tourism, Jain said state tourism is on upswing and if the statistics are to be believed state ranks 5th in the footfall of international tourists while in domestic footfall it ranks 8 th.
“That the state tourism is on upswing is proved by the inflow of tourists that is recorded 15.28 lakh during 2015-16. It has peeped Rajasthan in terms of volume of inflow of tourists in the state,” secretary state tourism said. “Of them 40 tourists will take a trip to Gajaldoba-where the state government has taken up an ambitious project to showcase the state. Besides, trips will entail hills in North Bengal, sundarbans, heritage torurism will also be explored,” Bhattacharya said.