IBSA to promote 3-way tourism

IBSA, the trilateral developmental initiative between India, Brazil and South Africa, will ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote three-way tourism, next month.

Leela Nandan, joint secretary, tourism ministry, told Business Standard on the sidelines of the Kerala Travel Mart 2008 in Kochi, that the IBSA joint working group comprising senior-level representatives from IBSA had finalised the agenda in this regard.

“The meeting stressed on the importance of interaction between the private tourism stakeholders to develop better understanding of the tourism products in each others' country. The draft has been agreed upon and we will sign the MoU at the IBSA summit in New Delhi next month,” Nandan added.

She added that the deliberations in Kochi dwelt upon the draft tripartite agreement for cooperation in the field of tourism between the IBSA nations.

“We expect that the inking of the MoU would promote ties in tourism-related activities as well as provide a better understanding between the IBSA nations,” she pointed out.

This, in fact, is the first initiative that would aid three-way tourism between India, Brazil and South Africa. Apart from tourism, faculty development, student exchange and human resources development programmes will be part of the agreement.

Nandan added that a similar Asean-India tourism development and cooperation initiative was also currently under way between India and the Asean nations.