"TL govt committed to develop strong strategy to promote

The Telangana government Friday said it is committed to develop a strong strategy to promote tourism in the state and sought the cooperation of the industry in their endeavour. "The government of Telangana, under the leadership of Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao, is committed to building the strongest possible tourism strategy," Tourism Minister V Srinivas Goud said here Friday.

Goud, who was speaking at a conference on tourism here, sought the cooperation of the sector in the endeavour. The Confederation of Indian Industry, Telangana, in partnership with the state government, organised the conference on "TOURISM 4.0: DESTINATION TELANGANA" with the theme"Linking Heritage, Tradition and Technology for a Sustainable Tourism".

CII, Telangana suggested that the government formulate a comprehensive Tourism policy to lay out a long term vision to promote tourism and also adopt a more focused perspective. "Given the inherent strengths and challenges, Telangana can devise a planned approach to address the challenges and lay out a long term vision for tourism development.

The vision could be a comprehensive tourism policy, which could be drafted in alignment with the vision with a shorter, more focused & implementation oriented perspective," it said in a white paper submitted at the conference. The white paper, "which is a precursor to the Tourism Policy, identifies certain tourism themes and destinations that align with the state's priority to position tourism as an important economic enabler, create employment and also leverage on the states inherent strengths", it said.

While it is necessary to develop tourism projects to attract more people, it was important to focus on developing a few important destinations rather than setting up several new attractions in every possible location, it said. The white paper identified certain focus areas, including connectivity, destination development, safety and security, facilitating tourism investments, skill development for manpower and development of mega projects for implementation through a dedicated tourism policy.

State tourism secretary B Venkatesham stressed the need to unlock Telanganas potential in tourism. While the state has rich heritage and culture, it is also advanced in terms of technology, he said, adding tourism was the only industry which can generate employment for various types of people He also emphasized the need for behavioural changes on the part of various stakeholders in the country to promote tourism.

Telangana attracted 3.5 lakh foreign tourists in FY 2018-19 and efforts should be made to give a push to the number, he added.

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