Dedicated tourism officers in missions abroad will help boost brand India: Reddy

The presence of dedicated tourism officers in 20 Indian missions abroad will help in further branding and promoting the country's culture and heritage in foreign nations, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy said on Thursday.

Addressing a tourism conference here, the Union tourism and culture minister also said vaccination against COVID-19 and tourism will go together in the current scenario. Without vaccination, tourism will not survive and no tourists will come, he said. ''The Ministry of External Affairs, on the request of the tourism ministry, has appointed dedicated tourism officers in 20 Indian missions abroad. This will help in further branding, promoting India's culture and heritage in these countries,'' Reddy said.

The minister, later in a press conference, said the tourism ministry devise a plan on how the ministries involved in this initiative can work in synergy.

''Through this initiative, branding and promotion can be done by writing articles in magazines and other publications, and via other means so that brand Incredible India can be promoted more effectively,'' Reddy added.

On Wednesday, the Union tourism minister had tweeted about the decision and thanked External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

''I would like to thank Hon'ble EAM S Jaishankar garu for his speedy response to my letter requesting for dedicated tourism officers in 20 missions abroad. We now have tourism officers identified in 20 missions abroad where we have large tourist footfalls,'' he had tweeted.

In his tweet, he had also shared a letter dated October 21 from the MEA, which mentioned the countries where these officers have been designated.

These countries include Australia, Canada, China, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Japan, the UK and the US, according to the letter shared in his tweet.

A two-day conference of tourism and culture ministers of southern India began in Bengaluru on Thursday to apprise various stakeholders about the projects and initiatives being taken by the Centre for the development of the region.

The conference is taking place three months after the Ramappa temple at Palampet in Telangana's Warangal was conferred the tag of UNESCO World Heritage site.

''Spoke on @tourismgoi's initiatives to boost tourism and also encourage investment. Congratulated all the scientists, health care workers and vaccine manufacturers on crossing the 100 crores vaccine mark and dwelt on how this will be a big boost for the tourism industry,'' Reddy tweeted on Thursday.

In his speech at the conference, he also asserted that there can be no bigger confidence booster for the revival of tourism than vaccination against COVID-19.

He exhorted the southern states and UTs to effectively take part in the Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav. ''India's civilisation heritage goes back to many thousands of years and this 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' is also an opportunity to pay a tribute to all those people that fought for the preservation of our heritage,'' he added.

Minister of State for Tourism Ajay Bhatt said, ''Culture and tourism complement each other in today's changing world... That is why it is necessary to see culture and tourism as two sides of the same coin. The people of South India have understood this very well and that is why there has often been a very good development in the field of tourism here.'' Bhatt also highlighted the impact of administering 100 crore vaccine doses on the tourism sector and said history has been scripted under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

During a press conference, held on the sideline of the event, a few local journalists alleged that the conference was happening in Bengaluru but Karnataka was ''not getting due attention in the allocation of central government tourism projects''.

Reddy replied that he will have a meeting with the stakeholders in the Karnataka government and take a decision on projects.

Some local mediapersons pointed out that on the printed banners nothing was written in Kannada language, despite Bengaluru hosting the conference. Later, organisers also put up huge banners with text written in Kannada at the venue.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)