Gujarat eyeing 6 crore tourist footfall by 2020
Gujarat is looking to graduate from 4.2 crore tourist footfalls in 2016 to 6 crore by 2020. The state's main target is to attract young tourists looking for short vacations. To realize the same, the state is looking at a wide range of promotions and tourist activities. However, Gujarat is not limiting itself to just Indian tourists as it looks to attract foreign ones as well.
"Our main focus segment is the young people with spending power who go for short vacations...[Apart from domestic targets] We are promoting Gujarat on the international platform, including Italy, east Europe, Japan and South Korea among others," said Jenu Devan, MD of Tourism Corporation, Gujarat.
Jenu Devan, the MD of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat, said that the state offers a wide range of activities to young tourists including adventure sports, eco-tourism, beaches, heritage sites, festivals, and border tourism. Among its primary domestic targets are Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Indore, all of which boast of a young working population with significant spending power.
"To attract travellers to visit Gujarat again and again, we keep developing new tourism products. We are developing two new circuits - heritage and Buddhist circuits. Besides we are also mulling over creating several other circuits like Jain, Sufi and tribal," added Devan.
The Gujarat state government already spends over Rs. 200 crore annually for promoting Gujarat tourism at various domestic and international platforms. In addition, the state has attracted over Rs. 9,000 crore worth of investment for creating infrastructure and realizing 220 tourism-related projects for the period 2015-2020. It is also aiming to increase the proportion of foreign tourists from 2% to 5% by 2020.
