More tourists visiting Gujarat

Number of tourists has gone up by 5.4 million in the last two years

The number of tourists visiting Gujarat has gone up by 5.4 million in the last two years. The number of hotel rooms in the state has also increased from 45,000 to 64,000 in the same period, according to Gujarat Tourism Department principal secretary, Vipul Mitra.

Addressing a road show on Gujarat tourism here on Saturday, Mitra said that Gujarat provides the best connectivity for tourists in the country. All the 18,000 villages in the state were connected by Internet. The state government had also started a round-the-clock helpline for tourists.

He said that the launching of "Kushboo Gujarat Ki", a promotional campaign with Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador, continued to make a deep impression of Gujarat as an important tourist destination.

Inviting tourists, Mitra said that Gujarat was filled with a variety of destinations which would cater to all types of tourists. Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) was also promoting film tourism in a big way and was wooing Bollywood to shoot films in the state.

TCGL chairman, Kamlesh Patel, said that the Narendra Modi government had spent Rs 1,200 crore on development of tourism related infrastructure in the state.