Minister of state for Tourism Mahesh Sharma has hailed the extension of e-visas to Chinese nationals. Sharma said on Tuesday that “It was a great vision of our prime minister that he took a lead and Chinese declared it as e-tourist visa place.” The ministry now aims at promoting tourism in India from China.  He said, “China and India has a ratio of 1:4 of inbound and outbound tourism. We want to fill this gap.”

Speaking on the sidelines at a pre-event function of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association), he said “in the travel and tourism index India has jumped from 65 to 52nd rank and it is a jump of 13 places from last year ranking. I think the credit goes to our great prime minister who is acting as the ambassador of tourism worldwide.”

The PATA conference is scheduled to be held in September from 6th to 8th September. The PATA event brings together international buyers and seller for one-to-one meetings, educational forum and networking sessions. It provides platform for showcasing and promoting the varied tourism destinations and products of countries, to a target international audience.

The ministry of tourism has earlier hosted the PATA travel mart in Hyderabad in 2008 and in New Delhi in 2011.

‘Tourist Mitra’ police in Karnataka

RV Deshpande, tourism and higher education minister of Karnataka while presenting the details of the PATA event, spoke about “Tourist Mitra”.

The “Tourist Mita” is an attempt of the Government of Karnataka to ensure safer tourism in the state., “we aim to tackle the security concerns related to tourist by implementing “Tourist Mitra”. This team will focus more on women, ” Deshpande said.

The tourism department of Karnataka is in touch with the Ministry of Home Affairs on this issue.

Minister added, “The Tourist Mitra will be entrusted with all powers of police. They will wear a smile on their face but will be empowered to take actions.”

The minister shared that the tourism department of Karnataka will train the current officials and will recruit more if need felt.

There will also be new police stations made especially for tourist assistance if required. He said, “we will try to use the spaces in the police stations that are already existing but if required we will even build new ones.”

For assisting and helping the tourists the guides in Karnataka are also being trained by four universities. Keeping PATA event in mind the guides are also being trained in four foreign languages.  “The tourism department is working on the task to improve the skills of guides at tourist destinations in the state. They will even be taught languages like French, Russian, Chinese,” he said.