September 10, 2018 TnH Global 1

Take steps to attract Chinese tourists, DG urges IATO members

Director-General (Tourism) Satyajeet Rajan called upon the members of the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) to attract Chinese tourists by promoting India through social media, short movies and other formats in Chinese language.

At the valedictory of the 34th annual convention of the IATO here on Saturday, Mr. Rajan said China was the biggest outbound market in the world but India had failed to attract Chinese tourists so far and added that India should attract at least 1% of China’s total outbound tourists in the next year. Of the 144 million outbound tourists from China, who had visited different parts of the globe during 2017, only 2.4 lakh had visited India.

He said there was a vast scope to promote the mountain and forest tourism in India but so far only 5% could be tapped due to lack of clearances by of the Forest Department.

IATO president Pranob Sarkar described the conference as ‘successful’ and predicted that tourism in the State would witness significant growth by next year. The association would come up with a list of suggestions to the AP Tourism Development Corporation to attract foreign and domestic tourists. Chairman of Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (VMDRA) P. Basanth Kumar called upon tour operators and other stakeholders in the tourism industry to place Vizag and Andhra Pradesh on their itineraries.

News Source: https://www.thehindu.com/