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| Yogesh Chandra |
The next India Initiative Retreat
of World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) will be held at
Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. This comes as a quick response
to the state tourism minister’s appeal to the tourism
industry to promote the languishing tourism industry in the
state. The third retreat of the Council will be held on September
6-7, 2003.
Said Yogesh Chandra, general secretary,
WTTC-India Initiative, that the third retreat will look into
the progress of the previous two retreats. Incidentally, the
previous retreat, which was held in Goa, focused on tourism
crisis management to find a permanent solution to tackle any
untoward event and had initiated a move to set up a crisis
management committee.
Although, he did not mention any
specific details for the upcoming retreat, Chandra said, “Our
primary focus this time will be to look into the efforts made
during the previous two retreats to resolve tourism-related
issues and chart the future course of action. Currently, we
are in the process of finalising various aspects like the
theme and agenda for the event. The retreat will also focus
on Kashmir’s tourism as the state government is planning
to showcase its potential during the event.”
The two-day retreat will be held
at the Hotel Grand Palace owned by Bharat Hotels group. Like
every retreat, the participation will include parliament members,
bureaucrats, senior editors, policy makers and senior officials
from the ministry of tourism and civil aviation.
“The retreat will also be an
interaction with the stakeholders and a cross section of people
with power on various issues of the industry,” added
Chandra.
We will also look into following
up of our initial five-point agenda:
- To set up a cabinet committee
on tourism.
- Increase the plan outlay for the
sector.
- To have visa on arrival.
- Rationalisation and uniformity
of taxes.
- Marketing of the brand called
India. The council counts reduction in hospitality taxation
as an achievement.
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