Category Archives: MOT

Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, with an aim to extend support to the foreign tourists who are stranded in our country because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has set up a portal to disseminate information regarding the services that can be availed by them. The portal is titled ‘Stranded in India’. And it is also hosted on Incredible India website also. The portal will help tourists get information/details of State Tourism departments and Regional offices of Ministry of tourism to help you to stay safe and healthy while in India. It will also help you find information on ways of getting back to your home country. Please visit strandedinindia.com or incredibleindia.org for further details.

Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, has revealed that they have put forth the industry representation and requests in front of the Finance Minister, so that they can work towards reducing the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on businesses. “The industry stakeholders need working capital and they are looking at interventions either from the banking sector in easing out of norms, or they will be looking at support through reduction of taxes. These are the things that would leave money in the hands of the industry as of now. We would be carrying out or taking with us the representation of the industry and the thrust would be that the industry needs to survive so that job losses do not happen. I would refer to the honourable PM’s speech to the nation, where he has himself mentioned that we should make sure that we don’t stop wages of anyone. Hence, all the efforts of the Ministry of Finance would be to ensure that no such job losses happen in the tourism and hospitality sectors.”

The meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture was held in New Delhi. The meeting was led by its Chairman the Minister of State ( IC) for Tourism and Culture, Prahlad Singh Patel. The agenda of the meeting was “ Promotion / Development of rural Tourism and home stays and Improvement in Global Benchmarking of tourism sector”. The Ministry of Culture focused on various cultural activities like fairs and festivals. The Members of the committee gave innovative suggestions on promotion of tourism and culture for Incredible India. The Minister highlighted on the need to convene at regular intervals and he also highlighted on the need to give specific suggestions on aspects of roads development so that the diverse parts of India can be accessed by all to appreciate the immense potential of India’s art, heritage, culture and natural sites.

The Indian government has announced the suspension of all regular visas to India in view of rapid surge of COVID-19 cases in the country. In an order, the Health Ministry said all existing visas except diplomatic, official, UN/International organisations, employment and project visa are suspended till 15th April 2020. This will come into effect from 1200 GMT on 13th March 2020 at the port of departure. Any foreign national who intends to travel to India for compelling reason may contact the nearest Indian mission, visa-free travel facility granted to OCI cardholders is also kept in abeyance till 15th April,” read a communique, issued after a meeting of a Group of Ministers. All incoming travellers, including Indian nationals, arriving from or having visited China, Italy, Iran, Republic of Korea, France, Spain and Germany after 15th February 2020 shall be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days. Incoming travellers, including Indian nationals, are advised to avoid non-essential travel and are informed that they can be quarantined for a minimum of 14 days on their arrival in India. The notification also strongly advised Indian nationals to avoid all non-essential travel abroad. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism and Culture, Government of India, has said that they are thinking of declaring 2021 as Visit India Year, with an aim to invite people across the world to the country and showcase its diversity. “We want people across the world to know India and see its cultural heritage and its attractions. In order to showcase that we are in discussion to declare 2021 as Visit India Year. We want to make the new multilingual website and language facilities at important tourist sites, act as facilities to attract tourists from different countries across the world,” he announced at the launch of the multilingual Incredible India website in New Delhi.

The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) has launched the multilingual website of Incredible India during an event in Delhi. The website which is currently hosted in English and Hindi has been revamped with a new design to provide more information about India’s tourist destinations, attractions, experiences and providing support in Chinese, Arabic and Spanish languages. Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State for Tourism & Culture (I/C) unveiled the new website at The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi in presence of key stakeholders of the Indian tourism industry. Incredible India website (www.incredibleindia.org) is a promotional website of MOT for projecting India as a ‘must-visit’ destination across the globe. Incredible India 2.0 website aims towards showcasing the varied tourism products of India at a global arena by providing visitors with relevant, personalized and contextual digital experience escalating tourism awareness, attraction and opportunities.

Rakesh Kumar Verma, Joint Secretary, MOT, will be travelling for ITB Berlin 2020 with a delegation of around 49 exhibitors, which will be led by Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism and Culture. The format has been changed this time for ITB Berlin, as there will not be a presentation and press conference, but a panel discussion instead. “We will be having a breakfast meeting with the German FTOs in Berlin. We have a panel discussion on the first day, which will focus on global trends in tourism focusing on Incredible India and will be moderated by a CNN journalist. It will have around 5 panelists including German tour operators who will be talking about India and their experience. While there will not be a specific campaign for ITB Berlin, we will project the efforts we are taking and the whole range of offerings we have been developing at MOT. Apart from that we have small group engagements and one-to-one engagements at the VIP lounge at India Pavilion of ITB. We are trying to project India as an experiential and transformational destination for the travellers, which is one of the key messages that we are putting across,” he shares. “The Ministerial delegation would consist of 49 co-exhibitors, including state governments, tour operators, hotels, wellness centres, as well as Ayurveda society. We’ve taken a huge space of 705 sq. m. CMD, ITDC, will also be there. It will be a combined marketing effort by the Government and the stakeholders,” reveals Verma.

Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in January 2020 were 11,18,150 as compared to 11,03,380 in January 2019 registering a growth of 1.3%. 2019 registering a growth of 1.3%. The percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals in India during January 2020 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (18.68%) followed by USA (15.34%), UK (9.68%), Canada (4.51%), Australia (4.01%), Russian Fed (3.75%), Malaysia (2.89%), China (2.86%), France (2.54%), Germany (2.37%), Sri Lanka (2.24%), Japan (2.06%), Thailand (1.52%), Rep. of Korea (1.47%) and Nepal (1.41%).

Meenakshi Sharma, Director General, Ministry of Tourism, has said that they are very happy about the budget announcement, and will be using the same for developing infrastructure for iconic sites and other existing schemes by the MOT, apart from global promotions.  She says, “We are getting a budget of around Rs. 2500 crores and we have sufficient funds to go on with our existing schemes. We also look forward to develop the iconic sites, for which we will use more funds. For the iconic sites, our responsibility is to create major infrastructure. Hence, the focus will be on iconic sites, Swadesh Darshan, and Prasad schemes. OF course, the global promotions always remains an important thing. The Incredible India 2.0 scheme has panned out very well. We will be continuing with our theme. For domestic promotions—Dekho Apna Desh, the Prime Minister has already urged all Indian to visit Indian destinations before going anywhere else. This is something we are also going to talk about in our domestic promotions.”

Inaugurating development projects worth over Rs 1,200 crore in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that his government is giving top priority to roads, highways, waterways and railways, especially in terms of infrastructure. “Today when we talk about $5 trillion economy in India, tourism is an integral part of it. Besides nature, heritage tourism has a strong role to play in achieving the goal. Also, along with Varanasi other holy sites are being developed using new technologies,” he said. Developing major spots of faith and spirituality around the country, the government is working to make them accessible and convenient for pilgrims and tourists. For which, I have flagged off the Kashi-Mahakal Express to connect Varanasi with Onkareshwar and Mahakaleshwar,” PM Modi further said.