The Union Minister for Railways and Coal Piyush Goyal, believes that unless the infrastructure and fundamentals are set up, India cannot come up as a sought-after tourist destination. “The present government has been developing facilities like ensuring 24 hour power supply, promoting renewable energy forms and improving connectivity by effectively connecting the remotest destinations. The most important element that will help promote tourism in a complete way is the government’s cleanliness drive—Swachhta Abhiyan, which will ensure that India becomes a preferred destination for all international tourists.” He was speaking at the inauguration of the maiden edition of the India Tourism Mart (ITM 2018) organised between September 16 and 18 in Delhi.
Goyal elaborated that no country can attract international tourists until the visitors feel the country is safe and clean. “The efforts we have undertaken in the last four years to bring about cleanliness is certainly going to be one of the defining features to promote tourism in the nation in a big way,” he said.
He further informed that the government has fast-tracked the country’s connectivity mission and the effort to connect the remotest parts of India with efficient modes of transport is ongoing. Sharing details about initiatives taken by the Indian railways towards facilitating tourism, Goyal said, “Very recently, we have significantly reduced the pricing of the luxury trains to encourage more and more tourists to travel in these trains to see and explore the beauty of our nation. I would like to urge all to crowd-source ideas and help us with newer initiatives to help us to meet the ambitious targets we have set for the tourism industry.”
The Railway Minister also acknowledged the income multiplier effect in the tourism sector and pointed out that this sector generates a number of employment opportunities in the formal and informal sectors and can change the destiny of the country. He commented that the youth of the country can be entrepreneurs, service providers, interpreters and so on in the tourism sector and ascertained that India with its varied features has tremendous potential and India just needs to leverage from it.