Tourism Ministry pursue measures to overcome hotel room shortage

New Delhi, Jan 18 (UNI) The Union Tourism Ministry has initiated special steps to augment the availability of hotel rooms to keep pace with the increasing foreign tourist arrivals, Tourism Secretary A K Mishra said today.

"My Ministry is working overtime to get out of the shortage of hotel rooms and thereby realising the full potential of the tourism sector," he said while laying the foundation stone of the new campus of the Indian Institute of Tourism&Travel Management (IITTM) at Noida.

The tourism sector was going through a boom and the Ministry was in touch with Central and State governments land owning agencies to meet the increasing land requirements of the hotel industry, Mr Mishra said.

In this context, he pointed out that there was 15 per cent growth in terms of tourist arrivals and 20 per cent growth in terms of foreign exchange earnings in the sector.

Tourism sector was next to the IT sector in foreign exchange earnings and efforts were on to create a conducive atmosphere for the growth of the tourism and travel related infrastructure building activities and sanctioning of projects, he added.

Mr Mishra said Wellness tourism, Beach tourism, Wildlife tourism, Pilgrimage tourism, Himalayan tourism and Cruise tourism were some of the areas where there was tremendous potential for growth in future. "Therefore, there is a need to produce world class human resource and infrastructure to meet the growing demand and challenges." Efforts were on to get Deemed University status for Indian Institute for Tourism Management, Mr Mishra said.

Tourism Additional Director General Sanjay Kothari said the Government was paying all attention on the necessity for grooming world class manpower owing to the phenomenal growth of the Tourism Industry.

Institutes offering training, education, research and consultancy in sustainable management of tourism, travel and other allied sectors were being encouraged to produce the desired results, Mr Kothari added.

For Noida campus of IITTM, five acres of land have been allotted and 14.52 crores have been sanctioned by Ministry of Tourism for the construction of the campus. Proposed courses to commence from the current academic session are: Two Year Post-Graduate Diploma in Tourism and Leisure Management and Management Development Programmes (MDPs), Capacity Building for Service Provider (CBSP) and other short term programmes on tourism travel and allied sectors like other centers.

UNI