Union Culture and Tourism Minister, G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday, 08 February 2023 said nearly 69 lakh foreign tourists visited India in 2022, indicating a four-fold increase in the number of arrivals after two years of negative growth during COVID-19 pandemic. The increase in tourist inflow demonstrates that "efforts for achieving resilient growth in tourism are progressing in the right direction," he said.

Increase in tourist inflow indicates that “our efforts for achieving resilient growth in tourism are progressing in the right direction,” he said.

The event of Tourism Working Group was organised at the Tent City in Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch as part of India G20 presidency. The meeting has witnessed the participation of more than 100 delegates from India and other participating countries.

He further said that Ministry of Tourism is celebrating this year as "Visit India 2023", focusing on inbound travel to India and also pointed on the UNESCO mentioned India’s 40 heritage sites and more than 1000 festivals celebrations every year.

Central government has also drafted a new tourism policy 2023, which provides a "paradigm shift in reimagining our tourism sector in India," he said. Further mentioning that ‘National Tourism Mission’ is also being formulated to ensure the digitalisation of the tourism sector in mission mode.

To attract global and domestic investors and expertise, the ministry will organise the first Global Tourism Investment Summit in April 2023 in New Delhi, Reddy said.

As the first step, the ministry of tourism has set up a national integrated database of the hospitality industry. This is a technology driven system to facilitate digitalisation and promote ease of doing business for the hospitality and tourism sector,” said by the minister.

G Kishan Reddy said, “Also, we are going to organise a Tourism Expo to provide a platform to the industry and to facilitate interaction between buyers and sellers and for sharing of knowledge. The Ministry will also organise a global conference on MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism in May and an event on Adventure Tourism in June”.

After Gandhi Circuit and Buddh Circuit, we are now developing places which fall under Swami Vivekananda Tourist Circuit. Right before leaving for Chicago to address the World Parliament of Religions, Swami Vivekananda had visited some places in Gujarat. We are developing those places under Vivekananda Circuit,” Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said.

The TWG meeting held working sessions on five priority issues including green tourism, digitalization, skills, tourism MSMEs and destination management.

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