MOT focus on engaging students

Dubbing India’s youths as the best ambassadors for promoting the country’s tourism domestically and internationally, Dr Sagnik Chowdhury, Deputy Director General & Regional Director (West & Central India), MOT, GoI, explains how the ministry is making a strong attempt to train the youths through skill-based courses for productive engagements.

Hazel Jain

India Tourism has planned several activities targeted around students, working through its Yuva Tourism clubs that have school and college students as members. Dr Sagnik Chowdhury, Deputy Director General & Regional Director (West & Central India), Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, says, “They (students and youths) are our best ambassadors for promoting India as a tourist destination domestically and internationally. The main idea is to attract students towards our intangible cultural heritage because it is also important apart from built heritage that we focus on. We have planned tie-ups with various organisations and educational institutions where we plan to bring in a lot of students and teachers, hold seminars about tourism and touristic value and careers in tourism.”  The number of Yuva Tourism club members is north of 30,000.

With a view to making our citizens ambassadors of tourism, India Tourism focused on present and potential stakeholders to train them. It selected people who are directly and indirectly related to tourism. The pilot project, named Paryatan Mitra and Paryatan Didi, run in Madhya Pradesh’s Orchha intended towards capacity building of local stakeholders directly or indirectly linked to tourism. “At Orchha, we trained more than 1,500 stakeholders, including homestay owners, local guides, facilitators, and students in September 2024. It was a successful programme and we intend to replicate it across the country,” he says.

Gap in skilled-based labour

The Ministry of Tourism runs 21 central institutes of hotel management across the country and there are a number of state hotel management institutes – about 30 – affiliated to the National Council for Hotel Management, an autonomous body under the ministry. These institutes offer management courses as well as skill development courses for the hospitality industry. These courses allow students to take up junior and entry level management positions.

Similarly, the skilled manpower requirement is expected to be plugged by students who undertake diploma courses, craft courses, and certificate courses. “What we are planning in the longer term is to increase our capacity of training students for even these skill-based courses so that the large demand in the hospitality sector for skilled manpower is met,” Dr Chowdhury says.

GI tagging

India Tourism also plans to document GI-tagged products across India. In the western region, they will focus on the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the UT of Daman & Diu, Dadra Nagar Haveli. The team will be documenting, photographing and creating literature on all the GI-tagged products in this region. “We intend to create a knowledge bank and also generate a lot of public interest because GI-tagged products actually project India’s soft power. They are an indicator of our heritage, our rich and varied cultural heritage and, therefore, it is important to spread awareness about them,” he says.

India Tourism pavilion at Maha Kumbh

Maha Kumbh is an event that occurs once in 144 years. The Ministry of Tourism has, therefore, has planned to promote its Dekho Apna Desh campaign, the Chalo India campaign at the event, targeting NRIs and inbound traffic. “We have developed a 5,000 square feet pavilion at the Maha Kumbh, and we have invited influencers and bloggers to the Maha Kumbh. In this pavilion, we intend to facilitate these influencers, VIPs and other visitors, so that the Maha Kumbh experience for them is enriched. We, in collaboration with Uttar Pradesh government, have also planned a number of walks that are meant to enrich the knowledge about our spiritual and cultural heritage. We also have tied up with airlines, such as Alliance Air starting special flights to Prayagraj for the event. Our public sector undertaking ITDC has developed 80 tents in the tent city at Prayagraj. So, there are lot of activities and regional directors coming from all across the country,” he explains.