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Sudipta Dev – Jaipur
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Vasundhara Raje
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At the 49th annual convention of the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India, held in Jaipur recently, the chief guest of the inaugural function, Vasundhara Raje, chief minister, Government of Rajasthan, spoke about the new focus areas for tourism in her state. “Rajasthan and tourism are synonymous words. It is a land of sunshine, happiness and colour. Tourism is right at the centre of our policy. This sector needs to continuously evolve and we have to be ahead of our times,” said Raje, adding that the time has come to look at segments that are not mainstream tourism, for example, birders, curated travelling exhibitions, spiritual tourism, evening access to monuments and other such initiatives. She informed that the state has nine tourism projects this year going over a hundred crores. “We have to think of new ideas and events like Rajasthan Divas celebrations,” mentioned Raje.
Rajasthan Tourism is planning to create living experiences. “Amer is going to be our own big experience with a living monument and we should be able to role it out in the next two years,” she said. The state is also looking at long term sustainability and focusing on heritage conservation in Bharatpur, Bikaner and recently Udaipur.
Rajasthan has announced an ambitious scheme for roads, which is a PPP programme. “Nothing can happen unless we have the right infrastructure,” asserted Raje, She also informed that GITB is returning to Jaipur next year. One of the priorities, according to Raje, is employment generation in the state through tourism. She acknowledged that all states should take initiatives to set up more hospitality education institutes. “There is also a huge scope here for fine dining restaurants. There are many beautiful areas which could be given to private players. The hospitality industry can help us in a lot of areas,” she added. Addressing the gathering of hospitality industry and tourism association leaders, she said, “We are receptive to ideas that you might bring to us.”
