Tourism sector growing, Geeta Reddy claims

Express News Service
First Published : 04 Jul 2009 10:01:44 AM IST

HYDERABAD: Despite the economic slowdown, our country is doing very well in the tourism sector, especially the inland tourism has been showing very positive signs, Minister for Information and Tourism J Geeta Reddy claimed citing latest reports from the Tourism Ministry.

T he Minister inaugurated the 71st edition of the threeday Travel and Tourism Fair at Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium here on Friday. Addressing a press conference after the inaugural, Geeta Reddy said: “The State of Andhra Pradesh is attracting a large number of tourists from all over the world and the country for its medical tourism. Even as the heritage and pilgrim sites have been contributing to the economy, the world class medical facilities present in the state have proved to be power engines of the AP Tourism in the recent past.” The Minister also said that the Tourism Department had plans to start ‘Village Tourism’ in order to give a further boost to the sector.

Chairman and CEO of Fairfest Media Sanjiv Agarwal, who was the chief coordinator and organiser of the event said that the fair has witnessed 15 per cent growth over last year.

He also pointed out that the number of States represented had increased to 18 from that of 11 States last year.

“In the current scenario, when travel and tourism organisations are slowly coming to terms with slowing down of demand, tourists and business travellers can look forward to real bargains in travel packages and hotel accommodation rates,” Sanjiv Agarwal said.

Including AP — the host State, the other States that were present in the fair include, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Goa, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. This year the United Kingdom has also made its presence felt in the fair.

The States that stole the show were Gujarat with their Dandiya theme and Punjab, which has come up with a unique concept of farm tourism, where tourists would be exposed to agrarian life of the State.