Safety of tourists top priority, says Chiranjeevi

Expressing anguish over the attempt to assault a British tourist in Agra, Tourism Minister K Chiranjeevi today underlined the need for ensuring safety and security for tourists in the country.
Addressing the consultative committee of his Ministry here, he said safety and security of tourists are on top of his priority list.
He informed the members of the committee that he has immediately ordered suspension of the three-star rating of the Agra hotel involved in the incident.
He also said the ministry has issued a show-cause notice to the hotel for cancelling its licence.
Chiranjeevi spoke to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and requested him to put in place a proper system to ensure the safety and security of tourists especially women and children.

He also informed the committee that he has started contacting personally all chief ministers urging them to institute an adequate safety mechanism for tourists in their respective states.

The tourism ministry has set a target to double the foreign tourist arrivals by 2016 taking 2011 as base.
"This would mean that our foreign tourist arrivals need to register a growth of 12 per cent per annum.
"For the purpose, the focus of my ministry would be to improve existing infrastructure, create new infrastructure, broad base human resource development, overcome seasonality of Indian tourism by developing niche tourism products, expand the range of Indian tourism destinations by developing lesser known destinations and undertake aggressive promotional and marketing activities," he said.

Foreign tourist arrivals registered a growth of 5.4 per cent and foreign exchange earnings registered an impressive growth of 21.8 per cent last year.
He said the growth registered in terms of foreign tourist arrivals was significant for our country especially considering the fact that world tourist arrivals as a whole increased only by 3.8 per cent last year.
At the same time, he expressed his concern over India's low share in international tourist arrivals. The country receives only 0.64 per cent of international tourist arrivals.
In order to increase India's share in global tourism, Chiranjeevi said, "My effort is to make India as a round the year destination - a destination for 365 days and for all seasons. For this purpose, we are developing various niche products like rural tourism, wellness and medical tourism, eco and adventure tourism, golf and polo tourism, film tourism, cuisine and shopping tourism and cruise tourism."

He further said, "While trying to concentrate on the growth of foreign tourist arrivals, we are not going to loose focus on domestic tourism. In order to popularise and promote domestic travel, Ministry has launched a new campaign 'Go Beyond' which means go beyond the obvious."
The campaign will help the ministry develop lesser known destinations.