New Delhi [India], July 27 : A meeting was held between Assam Tourism Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah and leading tour operators from Delhi to promote the state as a tourist destination.
As many as 25 Delhi-based tour operators, travel agents and travel journal houses gathered at the meeting in Assam House here on Wednesday, the state government said in a release.
The converged to prepare attractive packages for promoting the state in a big way. The state’s tourism minister asked the tour operators to work in tandem with his department and other stakeholders to promote the tourism sector.
The Minister assured that his government would arrange to take the tour operators from Delhi to Assam for a familiarisation tour that would help them to make packages tailored to the needs of tourists.
The state of Assam offers hills to wetlands to reserve forests, food, culture, rural landscape, flora and fauna to get an immersive travel experience for for tourists and film makers. The tea gardens and the natural lush green golf courses are some of the other major attractions.
As the growth in the tourism Sector is vital for socio-economic development in a state, the Assam cabinet last year approved the proposal for grant of Industrial status to the tourism sector in Assam.
The Minister disclosed that there has been a whopping increase of tourist footfalls of 573 per cent in domestic tourists and 783 per cent in foreign tourists in 2023. The uptick in tourists, according to the minister, was due to the improvement in the law and order situation with no protests and bandhs taking place, besides improved and developed infrastructure and coming up of new premium hotels, including five star hotels and resorts in Guwahati, Kaziranga, Manas.
"More than the road shows, what I feel is that today's one-to-one meeting with tour operators has been more impactful and fruitful with valuable feedback and suggestions received from them which will enable us to make the tourism sector in the state more vibrant and resilient in the days ahead," he said.
The Minister said that the state government has been taking a slew of initiatives to promote tourism such as organising road shows in metropolitan cities and taking part in marts and fairs in the country and abroad.
The Minister disclosed that the government is keen to revamp the Assam Tourist Information Centre at Connaught Place in order to make it more functional so that it can gear up to promote tourism in Delhi-NCR.
Notably, with sustainability as the centre point and one of the guiding principles, the Assam government in November 2022 has launched a new tourism policy which was branded under ‘Awesome Assam’. The word sustainable and sustainability found dozens of mentions in the new tourism policy document.
Also, a new comprehensive website for Assam Tourism was also launched where tourists will be able to avail of various services under one roof.
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