The Hindu : Other States / West Bengal News : Road map for tourism in areas hit by tsunami

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 22, 2005

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Other States - West Bengal

Road map for tourism in areas hit by tsunami

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA, FEB. 21 . India will finalise the blueprint of a road map for the revival of tourism in tsunami-affected areas. This would be based on a model adopted by other countries and on the lines of the Phuket action plan formulated by 62 countries to meet post-disaster contingencies, the Union Minister of State for Tourism, Renuka Chowdhury, said here today.

She was inaugurating the three-day meet of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Co-operation countries said that Tourism Ministers of all States would meet in New Delhi early next month to finalise the blueprint.

This is part of a multi-national effort to revive tourism in the affected areas of the sub-continent.

Representatives of seven countries of the Bay of Bengal region — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan and India — will work over the next few days to determine strategies for capitalising on the tourism potential.

The conference would explore ways to double regional tourism within the next five years through co-branding, aggressive promotion and product diversification.

She indicated that the Budget proposals for 2005-2006 may contain a special tourism package of incentives for the North-East.

A proposal had been made to the Union Home Ministry to relax certain bindings in inner-line-permits for Indians visiting Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

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Road map for tourism in areas hit by tsunami