With India’s culinary traditions garnering increasing international attention, President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday advised the tourism industry to offer exotic items on the platter of tourists.
“One of the most attractive assets that India can offer is our cuisine. There is no parallel to the range of local specialties that a traveller can savour as he travels through India,” Mukherjee said after presenting the National Tourism Awards in various categories at a function here.
Noting that there are plans to open a national institute of excellence for culinary specialisation and research, he cautioned that due attention to safety and quality standards would instill more confidence in the foreign as well as domestic tourists.
The President also stressed on the importance of better infrastructure and sustainable, “green” tourism and called upon host communities to be more conscious and proactive with regard to tourist destinations in their respective areas.
Speaking on the occasion Union Tourism Minister K Chiranjeevi stressed on the safety of tourists and said a code of conduct for ‘Safe and Honourable’ Tourism has been adopted by the Ministry and stakeholders.
“The objective of the Code is to follow internationally accepted best practices of safe tourism applicable to both tourists and local residents giving special emphasis to safety of women and children”.
He also informed that steps are being initiate towards the electronic delivery of more than half a dozen services online to enable anyone desirous of visiting India from any part of the world plan their trip to India and make actual bookings from the comfort of their home.
Besides, “to provide round the clock information to international tourists, the Ministry is also setting up a tourism information line which would be a multi lingual helpline in nine world languages,” he added.