Gujarat government to announce new tourism policy
Plans to market medical, religious tourism; To hardsell beaches, festivals, fairs.
In a major boost to the state’s tourism sector, the Gujarat government plans to offer a host of incentives in the new tourism policy, likely to be announced before the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit in January next year.
The new policy will focus on developing and promoting heritage sites and beaches besides hard-selling medical and religious tourisms in the state.
“We intend to aggressively market our culture in order to develop tourism. We will promote festivals like Navratri, Uttarayan, Diwali as well as fairs like Tarnetar globally,” said state tourism minister Jaynarayan Vyas.
Also proposed are ‘tourist spots’, or ‘Pravasan Dham’ in every district of the state. “We have shortlisted around 60 sites, of which we will finalise the final list within a month,” he said.
As per state government estimates, Gujarat attracts around 12 million domestic tourists per annum (2006 – 07). The state has over 2000 Fairs and Festivals – Important state for Event-based tourism especially based on Navratri, Kite Festival and Tarnetar Fair, which can generate a lot of interest among both Indian as well as foreign tourists, he said.
The new policy will focus on emerging areas of the tourism sector namely, Spiritual tourism, 'Well being' Tourism, Heritage Tourism, Cultural tourism, Sun and beach, Sports- Water and Adventure Sports, Nature tourism, Urban and Rural tourism, Cruises, Theme Parks, Meetings and Conferences- Convention Centres and golf tourism among others.
Enumerating the strengths of the state as far as tourism is concerned, Vyas said the policy will also focus on archeological and heritage tourism,
“Gujarat is rich in archaeological sites including World heritage site of Champaner, Indus Civilization sites like Lothal and Dholavera, ancient Buddhist sites among others. Ahmedabad’s heritage walk is the only daily departure heritage walking tour in India. Gujarat’s princely heritage has resulted in the state having more than 20 heritage hotels including converted forts and palaces,” said a government official.
As far as cultural tourism is concerned, the state is the land of rich handicrafts like Patola weaving, khadi, bandhani, embroidery, block printing, rogan painting, matani pachhedi, namda, woodcrafts, metal crafts, bamboo crafts, pithora, pottery—all of these can be marketed to tourists, he said.
The Tourism Corporation Of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL) has selected 37 destinations for integrated tourism development to create support infrastructure for tourism development.
“In last two years more than 600 projects in 300 tourist destination have been taken up with a cost more than USD 24 million. Also, 35 Pravasi Path of international standards has been taken up in Gujarat, involving an investment of USD 19 million,” said the official.