TravTalk India Online Magazine
With International Yoga Day being celebrated worldwide, India is making the right moves to attract tourists in the country looking at it as a wellness and spiritual destination, especially in the post-COVID world.
Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism, at the International Day of Yoga (IDY) programme in Hyderabad, said, ‘Yoga for Humanity’, which is the theme of IDY 2022, is the central message from India to the whole world.
Yogic wisdom
“Yoga is born in India and yogic wisdom has been part of India’s basic existence on a daily basis. That is something we would like to take forward. Particularly in the post-COVID world, it is a very important message because people have been negatively impacted, whether because of the world just shut down suddenly or because many people also suffered from Covid itself and from its impacts. The psychological impacts of Covid have also been huge across the world and we look forward to people taking in the whole philosophy of yoga into their daily lives and just be healthier in their body, mind and spirit,” she said.
Yoga boosting inbound
She believes that India will get huge promotion with IDY being celebrated worldwide. “The kind of yoga that you learn from an original practitioner and the way you can learn from a place where it was actually born is an entirely different experience. Thus, coming to India would see higher interest from across the world as people prioritise Yoga more than ever before,” she added.
Going all out
Brar revealed that they are actively working with various ministries towards making the visa easier, which should also help the whole process of people travelling to India for Yoga. “The last two years were focused more on sustaining and making sure that people felt safe. Therefore, the intervention of the ministry was largely focused on making sure that the
industry learns new protocols and it was communicated that India is safe to travel. Now, that the world is open, India is also issuing visas, much more robust campaigns in terms of taking the message for India forward are already underway and more shall come in the coming months,” she said.
