Ministry of Tourism opens its office in Beijing

With the sole purpose of flourishing India’s tourism industry and fetching more Chinese tourists to take a glimpse of India and Indian culture, the Ministry for Tourism & Culture has inaugurated an India’s Tourism office in Beijing today on April 07.

The opening of India tourism office to showcase its historical and cultural sites is the constructive outcome of an agreed plan of action for India-China Friendship Year Celebrations during 2007.

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The tourism office was inaugurated by the Minister of Tourism and Culture Ambika Soni, who is on the official tour to China.

To mark this occasion memorable, the Ministry of Tourism had planned an Incredible India Evening where several programmes displaying the Indian culture and cuisine for promotion of tourism between the two countries had been organised. The Ministry also launched its website www.incredibleindia.org in Chinese language and printed tourism brochures in Chinese language. Government of China had already set up a China National Tourist Office in New Delhi in August 2007.

"The Indian tourism ministry will organise road-shows in various cities of China to showcase our historical and cultural sites," the official at ministry said.

To encourage maximum number of Chinese to visit India, tourism-related literature is being translated into their own language. Some of Indian tourist guides are also being trained in Chinese language, which would be gradually increased.

To overwhelming the Chinese people’s mind and soul artistically, the Ministry of Culture in association with Sangeet Natak Academy has planned to perform a special classical dance programme in Beijing and Shanghai.

Besides dance programme, the Chinese people will also get tastes of Indian food by participating in Food Festival which will be held at Beijing Hotel in Beijing from April 07-14, 2008 and in Shanghai form April 08-15.

Today tourism has become a significant sector, which contributes overall development of the country, and a key factor in augmenting its development rate. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) predictions, the international tourism will continued be growing at the average annual rate of 4 percent. The international tourism will grow slightly faster than intra-regional travel and by 2020 the share will increased to 24 percent.

With the emergence of e-commerce tourism products have listed among top as the most traded items on the Internet. These tourism products and services are made available with the help of intermediaries, where as tourism providers (hotels, airlines, elc) can sell their services directly.

There has been a spiraling growth in the number of Chinese tourists visiting India from 21,152 in 2003 to 62,330 in 2006. Similarly, the Indian tourists visiting China has also constantly rose from 2,19,097 in 2003 to 4,05,091 in 2006.

The purpose of visit for nationals from China (Main) was “tourism & others” (99.5%) and “education & employment”(0.4% during 2006) in which the maximum number of visitors used air route during 2006 (98.7 percent) followed by land routes, which was just 1 percent.

The number of tourists after the establishment of India tourism department in China will no doubt persuade and enthuse more number of Chinese people to visit India. The Indian tourism department is expected to be on boom in coming years.