The Ministry of Tourism today launched a competition to select the best tourism village in India as well as a new portal to promote rural tourism.
With the commencement of Best Tourism Village Competition, the Ministry aims to nationally recognise those villages which are promoting and preserving their natural assets, cultural heritage and sustainable development through tourism. It will also help in empowering the rural population, developing new projects, increasing the conservational efforts and encouraging sustainable methods to make better use of resources, the officials said.
The competition selecting the best village will be held in three stages under the supervision of the tourism ministry and will seek three entries each at district and state level. These will be further forwarded for final and national level recognition.
The ‘best tourism village’ will be nationally recognised and awarded by MoT and will act as a model of rural tourism destinations in India, the officials added.
The evaluation criteria have been aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote sustainable and reasonable tourism, they said.
The Tourism Secretary said that another positive impact of the event is the construction of a road from Dhordo village to Dholavira heritage site which will give an economic boost to the region and encourage more tourism in that area. Singh said the visit to Dholavira was also “an eye-opener” as to how to take archaeological tourism forward.
Recently, Pochampally Village in Telangana was also selected by UNWTO in their ‘Best Tourism Village contest’. Pochampally is a famous town not only because of its sarees, but also because of the interesting amalgamation of nature, culture, heritage, history, that is unique to the place.
The formal launch of the competition was also followed by the curtain raiser for the rural tourism portal.
The portal www.rural.tourism.gov.in going live from today, will help the travellers gauge through India’s rural heritage, a responsible tourism segment and its surrounding initiatives, the rural experiences including homestays and more.
The officials also spoke about the Tourism Ministry’s National Strategy and Roadmap for Development of Rural Tourism and Rural Homestays in India that was formulated to prioritise rural tourism development at national level.
Besides these, an official website of the upcoming maiden edition of Global Tourism Investors Summit (GTIS) was also launched. The GTIS scheduled from May 17 to 19 this year at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, will showcase investible projects and opportunities in the tourism and hospitality sector.
GTIS will consist of knowledge and state focused sessions, CEO round tables, business meetings, state of the art exhibition and will offer a platform for the domestic and international investors to deliberate on potential opportunities in segments like hotels, cruise, films, adventure, eco-tourism and related sectors.
At the summit, the states and various ministries will also give presentations on their policies, projects and various schemes and will also seek to loop in the G20 member countries in the sessions dedicated for targeted partnerships, the officials informed.
The competition and portals were officially introduced to the media by Rakesh Verma, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and were unveiled by Union Culture, Tourism and DoNER Minister G Kishan Reddy in the presence of Minister of State for Culture and Defence Ajay Bhatt, Senior Economic Advisor, Ministry of Tourism Gyan Bhushan and Joint Secretary M.R. Synrem.
