Tag Archives: Ministry of Tourism

Ministry of Tourism is planning a virtual event of about two hours on National Tourism Day on 25th January. Rupinder Brar, ADG, Tourism, shared, “G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and DoNER will be the Chief Guest and Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism, will also be speaking in this online event. We have also invited Secretary, Culture; Secretary, Ministry of Textiles; Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change as well. The celebrations are a little low-key owing to Omicron spread across the country.”

Arvind Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, has said that the role of the state or national authority would be to incentivise the sustainable practices by local stakeholders and also to popularize responsibility and talk about responsible travel amongst tourists. Singh was speaking at the ‘World Majlis: Off the Beaten Path – Travel in the 21st Century’ session during the India Tourism Fortnight at Expo 2020.

Rakesh Verma, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, launched ‘Heal in India’ initiative to boost medical tourism growth at India Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. “India has become a favourite destination for yoga and wellness, the government of India recognizes medical value travel and wellness tourism as important sectors having the potential of accelerating the country’s development and attaining the objective of Aatmanirbhar Bharat” he stated.

Rakesh Verma, Additional Secretary, Tourism, has said that the draft tourism policy has five missions at its core, and the first one is National Green Tourism Mission, which looks at mainstreaming sustainability in the tourism sector. “It’s a key challenge the sector faces and it is also one of the lessons from the pandemic that we need to develop tourism on sustainable and responsible lines.”

The Ministry of Tourism started the destination based skill development-training program at 7 iconic sites in Financial Year 2019-20 to train, upgrade and sensitize the local people residing near these tourism sites and destinations. This program is geared towards enhancing employability, in both rural and urban destinations and to upgrade the manpower servicing the tourism sector.

Rakesh Kumar Verma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism has been upgraded to the level of Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. Verma is a 1993 batch IAS officer from Punjab Cadre. In a recent circular, ACC mentioned that they have approved the in-situ upgradation of many officers to the level of Additional Secretary to the Government of India, as a measure personal to them by temporarily upgrading the post held earlier.

Ministry of Tourism has recently tweeted that for strengthening tourism in Northeast, under the PRASHAD scheme, Rs 37.87 Crore have been sanctioned for the development Parshuram Kund in Arunachal Pradesh, which has been an iconic destination in the country.

Ministry of Tourism is organising a conference of Tourism and Culture Ministers of the Southern Region on 28th & 29th October 2021 in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Union Minister of Tourism and Culture G. Kishan Reddy and Chief Minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai will address the event on 28th October 2021. The two days’ programme will have presentations by various Ministries to apprise the participants about the various projects and initiatives being taken by the Central Government for the development of the region.

As the news of international borders and reinstating of e-visa has been announced, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has appointed tourism officers in 20 Indian missions abroad in a bid to boost overseas marketing and promotions. These officers were already posted in embassies in the countries where promotions will take place, revealed Rupinder Brar, ADG, Tourism.

In a meeting with industry associations on overseas promotions, Ministry of Tourism has proposed in that they wanted to declare 2022-23 as Visit India year, starting from August 15, 2022. “However, we suggested that it should start from January 1, 2022. If they want Visit India Year to be successful and meaningful, they should provide some incentives to the tour operators or tourists who want to visit India. Otherwise, it’d remain just a slogan,” he suggested.