ETW Staff – Mumbai
Travelling to India will be made easy once the electronic travel authorisation to visit India and tourism infoline in 12 languages becomes operational in about a year. This was disclosed by Parvez Dewan, secretary tourism, Government of India while inaugurating the first edition of the Incredible India Travel Bazaar (IITB), organised by FICCI in partnership with the Union Ministry of Tourism.
Speaking on the visa regime, Dewan said that during the past year India had considerably relaxed its visa regime and expanded the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) scheme. As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the government launched the VoA scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries, viz. Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes. The scheme was extended to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011. During the next 12 months, many of the travel facilitating decisions taken by the government will be implemented, added Dewan. He exhorted the foreign tour operators to stay back in India after the travel bazaar concluded to experience at first-hand, the diversity and the uniqueness of Indian tourism products. “ India is no longer a November to March destination; it is a round-the-year experience, its summer destinations are incredible, it is home to 73 per cent of the Himalayas and its modern hospitals provide second-to-none treatment at 10th of the cost in USA,” he stated. The inaugural function was also addressed by Girish Shankar, additional secretary, ministry of tourism, Government of India; Usha Sharma, additional director general, ministry of tourism, Government of India; and Dr Jyotsna Suri, senior vice president, FICCI and CMD, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group. On the occasion, a Knowledge Paper by FICCI and Roots Research on ‘India Inbound –The Kaleidoscopic Canvas’ was released. The knowledge paper highlights 10 key areas for policy intervention to promote foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs).
IITB, retained the exclusive focus on inbound travel, as its previous avatar, the Great Indian Travel Bazaar (GITB). This year’s event drew 247 foreign tour operators who engaged in B2B meetings with 246 Indian sellers in 9000 structured pre-fixed meetings over two days.
