“Side events on Rural and Archaeological tourism will be organised to promote tourism during the first Working Group Meeting. Success stories of Indian tourism will be showcased to the foreign delegates during the same,” Shri Arvind Singh said.
He added, “G20 will help in raising awareness about the tourism potential of India at the global level as the delegates of the meetings at 55 different locations will be exposed to Indian culture and tourist destinations.”
The first Tourism Working Group meeting is slated to be held from 7th to 9th February 2023 in Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. He informed the media that delegates of Rann of Kutch meeting will be taken to Dholavira which is a UNESCO world heritage site and through this people in our own country and in other countries will come to know about such sites which will help in enhancing tourism.
The Secretary said in G20, there are 5 inter related priority areas for tourism. Accordingly, thrust will be on these five priorities areas i.e. greening of tourism sector, harnessing the power of digitisation, empowering youth with skills, nurturing tourism MSMEs/ start-ups and rethinking the strategic management of destinations.
The Secretary disclosed that one of the priorities through G20 platform is to reach a consensus on how the SDG goals will be achieved by 2030. As a part of this, there will be emphasis on sustainable tourism which is important not only for environment but also to create opportunities for local enterprise.
The Ministry of Tourism will organise 3 mega tourism related events taking advantage of the G20 Presidency. These include Global Investors’ Summit in April, MICE Convention and meeting of World Tourism CEOs Forum. These are in addition to the G20 related events.
