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Rituparna Chatterjee – Mumbai
With a view to tap the booming MICE segment in India, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat, will be opening a convention centre in Vadodara by October-November this year. Speaking about this project, Sanjay Kaul, managing director, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat on the sidelines of the recently held Gujarat Tourism roadshow in Mumbai informed, “We are coming up with a convention centre in Vadodara for which tenders will be floated. The location has been earmarked and the model is being worked out.” Presently, Gujarat has a large convention centre located in Gandhinagar – the Mahatma Mandir which can host up to 15,000 people. Through this new convention centre, the tourism corporation is optimistic about attracting larger number of corporates and MICE groups.
Moreover, the corporation also has plans to build public infrastructure across all tourist destinations in Gujarat. “Our new focus is on infrastructure development, essentially hotel infrastructure and we have identified 39 projects for the same. These developments will be across different tourism segments like temples, beaches, eco-tourism, to name a few. This year the state government has allocated a budget of Rs 550 crore for tourism development and our expenditure has been close to 100 per cent over the years.” The corporation is also focusing on promoting homestays through standardisation, skill upgradation and effective marketing. Gujarat Tourism Opportunity Limited (GUJTOP) will be promoting these investments by inviting tenders from the private sector. GUJTOP is a special purpose joint venture company formed between Tourism Corporation of Gujarat and Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS) to facilitate tourism infrastructure projects across Gujarat on PPP basis. “This year, we are aiming to reach a growth of 17 to 18 per cent in tourist arrivals against 14 per cent last year,” mentioned Kaul.
