India to reward people visiting 15 tourist spots in a year by funding their expenses

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Bringing good news for travel enthusiasts, the Indian government has decided to reward people visiting 15 tourist spots in a year by funding their expenses.

Union Tourism Minister Prahlad Singh Patel said that the move shouldn’t be viewed as a monetary benefit, but an incentive.

For boosting tourism in India, the Ministry of Tourism has also launched a programme called ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ putting up a link on its official website where citizens can pledge to travel to at least 15 locations across India by the year 2022.

“The tourism ministry will fund the travel expenses of tourists who visit 15 destinations in the country in a year and submit the photos on our website,” Patel said during the concluding ceremony of the two-day National Tourism Conference in Odisha’s Konark.

However, tourists need to travel outside their home states to be eligible for a reward.
“We should honour these people as brand ambassadors of Indian Tourism,” Patel added.
The minister also said that the Sun Temple at Konark would be included in the list of ‘iconic sites’.

A special event will be held to announce this very soon, Patel said.

Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General of Tourism, said that the ministry is organizing certificate programmes for candidates who wish to work as tourist guides.
“But, participation of Odisha in this programme is very low and it needs to be enhanced. The state government should encourage students to take part in the certificate course,” Brar said.

On the concluding day of the conference, jointly held by the Odisha government and FICCI, a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) was signed between the state and Gujarat for cross-promotion of tourist sites.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), mentioning the key frameworks and policies will be signed soon following discussions with relevant departments of both the states, said Sachin Ramchandra Jadhav, Director of Tourism, Odisha.

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