Thursday, December 17, 2009

Tourism after 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai
  

The Minister of Tourism Kumari Selja has said that various Countries have been issuing Travel advisories from time to time, advising their citizens to avoid travel or to take precautions while traveling to areas in the country which are temporarily disturbed. The Ministry of Tourism through its overseas offices and in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian missions abroad takes up the matter regarding lifting of travel advisories as and when issued by different countries to avoid any adverse impact on tourism to the country.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today she said, the Ministry of Tourism has taken several steps to counter the downward trend of inbound tourism and to promote tourism to the country. These include liberalizing the Marketing Development Assistance Scheme for service providers promoting India, organizing Road Shows in important tourist generating markets overseas, arranging familiarization tours to India for international travel trade and media representatives to keep them updated on safety/security conditions in the country, media campaigns in the print, electronic, online and outdoor media and a “Visit India 2009” scheme, in collaboration with all stakeholders including airlines, hotels, tour operators, State Governments for incentivising travel to India. Recently Government of India has decided to introduce Visa-on-Arrival scheme for tourists from five countries viz. Singapore, Finland, New Zealand, Luxembourg and Japan on a pilot basis for a period of one year.

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