Tourism Minister invites stakeholders to invest in NE, J&K at Southern Travels' 50-year celebrations

Come November and India will get a new comprehensive National Tourism Policy. This was shared by the Minister of Tourism and Culture G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday while attending the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Southern Travels, one of the pioneer organisations in the travel and tourism industry as the chief guest. He also unveiled the new brand logo of the Group at The Lalit in New Delhi. “We are already in discussion with all stakeholders, tour and travel organisations, state governments, financial institutions and foreign travel operators and taking their inputs. We hope to introduce it before the Budget session of the Parliament,” he said.  

Reddy reiterated that it is time domestic tourism was developed as it had received a major boost during the pandemic. “We have innumerable destinations across the country and in the coming one year, we intend to change the face of facilities available at ASI-protected monuments in India. The period of the pandemic gave us the opportunity to reinvent and rethink about the tourism sector and make it future-ready,” he said, adding that highest standards of safety and reliability need to be maintained to attract tourists to these destinations. 

“The tourism industry works in tandem with multiple stakeholders and several Central ministries to offer an enriching tourism experience to the tourists. We, at the Ministry of Tourism, are well aware that tourism provides massive growth for economic development, and we are working towards improving it as also provide massive employment opportunities in the tourism sector all over India. We have taken a number of measures to boost tourism and encourage investments,” Reddy added. He also invited stakeholders from the tourism sector to come forward and invest in the Northeast, J&K and Ladakh. “You can first come there as a tourist and then invest. All possible facilities will be offered to you by the government,” he said.

On this occasion, Southern Travels announced that it is the first company to have been awarded 18 rooms and 36 dormitory beds facility at the Kashi Vishwanath temple premises/ corridor. “This will certainly boost traffic and allow senior citizens and NRIs to experience darshan from closer quarters comfortably. The company is also poised to embark on overseas destinations with ambitious plans and viable strategies to exhibit India’s global vision – from South India to South East Asia by 2024 and gradually into other continents,” said A Krishna Mohan, Managing Director, Southern Travels. 

Briefing the journey of Southern Travels, from a time when the country’s infrastructure was in a nascent stage and the travel and tourism sector not as diverse as today, Jatinder Paul Singh, CEO, Southern Travels, said, “The journey is not yet over. We have passed a milestone but will continue to spread our wings all over the globe.” By March 2023, the company plans to register presence as a service provider with travel brand stores in over 50 Indian cities.