The first Incredible India Investor’s Tourism Summit 2016 (IITIS) brought together tourism stakeholders from various cities and other countries to deliberate on the potential of 700 investable projects in India. The concluding session of the three-day summit witnessed the signing of 86 MoUs among the investors and five states. Gujarat exchanged MoUs close to INR 9,000 crore, Karnataka with INR 2,600 crore, Rajasthan with INR 1,000 crore, Uttarakhand with INR 500 crore and Chhattisgarh with INR 12 crore. Whereas, the B R Shetty Group has shown interest to invest INR 450 crore, Costa Cruises to invest INR 750 crore and Triveni Singapore to invest close to INR 800 crore in the country.
Vinod Zutshi, secretary, Ministry of Tourism, stated, “The Investor Summit will be an annual event and an investor desk will be set up at the ministry. It would help investors and state tourism boards on their projects. A tast force headed by the secretary tourism with the membership of relevant ministries, state governments and industry associations will be set up to undertake strategic planning to promote tourism. Lastly, the ministry would also support investor meets organised at the state tourism levels for strategic growth.”
Cecile Furman, global director, World Bank, informed, “World Bank supports India’s Buddhist Circuit development and will provide support for sustainable tourism development including funds.”
Talking about the various initiatives taken by the ministry, Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, informed, “We are willing to assist and support the investors in making India the preferred tourist destination in the world. Our tourism helpine in 12 languages also helps us reach out to more tourists.”
The inaugural ceremony was held at the Vigyan Bhawan in the presence of finance minister Arun Jaitley; Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu among other industry stakeholders. Jaitley mentioned, “There are so many unexplored tourist destinations in the country that we can showcase to the world. We need to market our monuments and heritage sites across the world. Also a business model should be developed for promoting the hotel and hospitality industry to adjust the capacity of the market.”
Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, stated, “Tourism is the subset of Indian economy and an integral part of global growth. Innovation must embed the world of travel and tourism as the world is radically shifting towards experiental travel. Only five per cent of the emerging world has travelled and India must prepare to cater to a new world of travellers.”
The first day also witnessed sessions including top ministers from 10 state governments along with Ashok Gajapati Raju, Minister of Civil Aviation and Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Railways. At the session on core infrastructure of tourism, Raju, stated, “The National Civil Aviation Policy has taken an integrated approach to address the problem of air connectivity across regions and states. This shall give boost to regional travel and smooth transitions among states.” During his speech, Prabhu mentioned, “Tourism is one industry that will move ahead whatever the economy growth be. Through our initiatives to improve the quality of service of railways, we shall assist the tourism ministry in showcasing the mind boggling potential of India.”
State tourism boards presented various projects and their potential. The questions post planery discussions helped investors to get a better understanding of the projects and the various ways through which they can participate in them.
The event was a joint initiave by the Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Finance Corporation of India (TFCI) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
