India to set up investment desk to boost tourism infrastructure
India is setting up a special desk to harness the enormous investment opportunities offered by the tourism sector in India.
India is setting up a special desk to harness the enormous investment opportunities offered by the tourism sector in India.
It will be jointly set up by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and Invest India.
“The emphasis so far has been on attracting tourists but now the time has come to focus on creating quality infrastructure and filling the gaps on the supply side to allow tourists to have a fulfilling experience,” said Vinod Zutshi, India’s Tourism Secretary after announcing the investment desk initiative.
He was inaugurating the second edition of ‘Tourism Investors Meet 2016’ organised by the industry chamber FICCI.
Zutshi observed that for the tourism sector to flourish there was a need to develop the core infrastructure of the country which included rail, road, air and waterways. He added that a ‘Task Force’ was being created by the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation and Railways to improve the connectivity to tourist destinations.
He said that there was immense scope of investment in the hospitality sector as there was a shortage of almost 190,000 rooms at present. He added that the government has been facilitating the private sector investors by improving ease of doing business, introducing single window clearance, business friendly policies and creation of land banks for investors.
Tourism Secretary noted that there is still a need to bring on board the state governments. Some states have been proactive and have introduced policies for promoting tourism but other states too need to realize that besides attracting tourists, investing in infrastructure was equally important.
Zutshi said that the government was planning to organize ‘Incredible India Tourism Investors’ Summit 2016’ in September to showcase the plethora of investment opportunities in areas of infrastructure development, both from India and overseas. The main objective of the summit is to position the Indian tourism sector for attracting large investments and presenting to the investors tangible investment-ready projects in different states of India.
On the occasion, the dignitaries released the FICCI-YES Bank knowledge paper on ‘Investment in Tourism Infrastructure: Unleashing the Growth Potential’.
