‘Tourist arrivals to Uttarakhand will double from FY19’

‘Tourist arrivals to Uttarakhand will double from FY19’

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New Delhi: With soaring domestic travel demand, the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board anticipates tourist inflows to the state to double from 39.2 million visitors in 2018-19 to 74 million by the end of FY24.

Uttarakhand also expects to attract investments of 30,000 in tourism and initiate 70 public-private partnership projects by 2030. At present, tourism contributes 4.4% to the state’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) or about 14,000 crore. It is expected to grow by 12-15% annually in the coming years, Sachin Kurve, secretary, tourism, and chief executive of the board, told Mint.

The state has attracted significant support and investment from the private sector, often in an incremental and ad hoc fashion. Notably, it secured $124 million from Asian Development Bank to enhance its sports tourism infrastructure.

A portion of these funds is now being used to develop paragliding and other sites in the state.

Kurve said that Uttarakhand was recognized for religious tourism, primarily the Char Dham yatra—a tour to the four sacred sites of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath, nestled in the Himalayas. However, the tourism development board has diversified its efforts by launching initiatives such as the Tehri Acro Festival, which is scheduled for November.

The event will be the nation’s first international aerial acrobatic show spanning five days, with participation of 150 paragliders, including international athletes, in the Tehri region of the state, he added. It also aims to offer training programmes to the local youth for paragliding-related employment, with a target of training over 100 skilled paragliders by the year-end.

World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC) expects a strong recovery in Indian tourism this year contributing an estimated 16.5 trillion to the economy, or just 3.5% decline from pre-covid levels.

The revival is anticipated to create more than 1.6 million new jobs, restoring employment to pre-pandemic levels and bringing the number of jobs for the sector to 39 million, or one in every 13 workers in India will be from the tourism industry.

Uttarakhand is relying on improved road infrastructure from key markets such as Delhi, besides a robust tourism sector that will fuel economic growth. In fact, WTTC expects international tourist spending to go up to 2 trillion, and domestic visitors spending to over 12.6 trillion for the calendar year.

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