Job revival key

The fundamental concern for MOT is to ensure that all stakeholders in the sector are employed, says G Kamala Vardhan Rao, DG, Tourism.

Nisha Verma

Claiming that after the pandemic, the tourism sector has suffered a lot across the world, G Kamala Vardhan Rao, said that they are trying to see shoots of revival wherever it’s happening.“For the last two months, vaccination drive is happening at a rapid pace. India is doing very well, hence we are seeing revival of domestic tourism in the last 3-4 months. Our focus is to promote, incentivise and prompt travel. Boost is required for the hotel sector, tour operators, guides, taxi drivers, and all the stakeholders who have lost jobs. Our fundamental concern is to see that once tourism is on track, all stakeholders in the sector get employed, to bring back confidence levels of the hotels sector, hoteliers as well as stakeholders in the tourism sector.” he says.

Stakeholder engagement
Rao shared about regular interaction with the stakeholders at various levels. “Whether it’s the aviation sector, tour operators, tourist guides or state governments, we are doing outreach programmes. Recently, we have done major programmes in Ladakh with the stakeholders.” he said.

Initiatives
Another focus of MOT is to implement their flagship programmes of PRASAD and Swadesh Darshan. “The idea is to oversee these projects and go for domestic publicities and develop infrastructure wherever it is required and conduct research. We would like to focus on research this year, in terms of how the pandemic has really impacted the tourism as well as the hospitality industry.”

Capacity building
Stressing that capacity building is very essential, Rao shares, “Right from Northeastern areas to Ladakh, we are seeing the homestays industry growing well. Hence, MOT would like to focus on this capacity building as well as skill building within hospitality- food & beverage, as well as guides. We will review these initiatives every month with the stakeholders. Also, under Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, celebrating 75 years of Independence, we are taking up major activities.”

Ladakh takeaways
MOT recently organised an event in Ladakh, which according to Rao was a good experience. “We interacted with the local stakeholders and the secretary and LG of Ladakh. With 17 flights every day, it’s seeing a big increase in tourists. Apart from Buddhist activities, there is adventure, trekking and skiing as well. There is a huge potential for tourism development. One of the takeaways from the event is capacity building in the form of homestays. Being a delicate ecosystem, one cannot expect five-star hotels everywhere in that environment. Hence, the intention is to increase homestays and do capacity building for the locals. All projects and programmes are aimed at employment generation for the locals. LG also mentioned that many homestays are coming up in Kargil, Nubra Valley, etc. Foreigners are showing interest in staying at these places. Almost 30-35 helipads are already identified and would like to increase this number as well as the basic infrastructure for adventure tourism for trekking and providing medical aids. We are looking at doing holistic development with a good synergy between all concerned departments to fulfil our goal of increasing tourism. However, we don’t want to take mass tourism in such a delicate area, it should be controlled, sensible, ecologically balanced and responsible tourism.”

On borders opening
In line with the revenge tourism, Rao is optimistic that both outbound and inbound tourism will happen whenever the borders open. “However, it depends on how the pandemic has affected other countries and if there can be movement between India and any of those countries. Owing to vaccinations and less number of cases in other countries, we expect more of inbound tourism soon. Keeping the spirit of tourism alive, is the motto of the Ministry of Tourism and we believe that survival and revival of the tourism sector is important.” he says confidently.

AS CMD of ITDC, he is dedicated towards expanding the business and go beyond hospitality. “Now that we are going slowly beyond the hotel industry, we would like to focus on other services, whether it’s Ashok Tours and Travels, or consultancy works, engineering division, event management division, or medical-value tourism. Under medical-value tourism, we would like to offer non-medical services” he insists.