Rajasthan poised to become India’s top tourist spot

Rajasthan is poised to take back the leadership position in the tourism map of the country, said Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Sunday. She was speaking at the inaugural session of the 10th edition of the Great India Travel Bazaar (GITB) at a city hotel in Jaipur. She said that the State was witnessing huge prospects in the tourism sector. The target of 50 million tourist arrivals by 2020 to Rajasthan would be met much earlier. Over 47 million tourists have come to the State by end of 2017, she added.

The Chief Minister further said that the logo and tagline “Jane Kya Dikh Jaye’’ has created a buzz the world over. The aggressive and creative marketing campaign had translated into impressive increase in tourist arrivals. Small wonder then, she said, that the State had recently won the prestigious ET Brand Equity Award. In fact, Rajasthan Tourism had bagged as many as 47 awards in the past four years.

On the occasion, the Chief Minister also thanked the Union government for having supported the tourism circuits in Rajasthan Pushkar (Rs 40 crore), Sambhar (Rs 63 crore), Heritage (Rs 100 crore), Spiritual (Rs 93 crore) and Krishna (Rs 91 crore). Furthermore, the intra-air connectivity in the State had connected Jaipur to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Bikaner. 

A long standing demand of Jaipur being connected to Agra with air had also been fulfilled. Soon, there would be flights from Jaipur to Varanasi. She hoped that Jaipur would also get connectivity to Kochi via Goa in the near future. 

During the keynote address by the Tourism Secretary, Government of India, Rashmi Verma said that in Rajasthan, Amber Fort has been selected as one of the 10 iconic sites from India. It will be developed in order to provide a better experience to tourists.

The tourism team from the Centre will be visiting Amer Fort on Sunday to conduct a ‘gap analysis’ and understand the current state of infrastructure at the site. Dr Subodh Agarwal, said that in the year 2016-17, the tourist occupancy in hotels was 65% compared to  58.9% in 2015.