NEW DELHI: The tourism ministry will set up a dashboard that will share good practices and case studies on sustainable tourism by participating G20 countries. It will be a dynamic dashboard, which will serve as a learning platform for various countries and these case studies will continue to be uploaded on it for the coming three years, said tourism secretary Vidyavathi on Wednesday, while briefing about the meeting of the fourth G20 Tourism Working Group and Tourism Ministerial Meeting scheduled to be held next week from June 19 to June 21 in Goa.
A side event on ‘Making Cruise Tourism a Model for Sustainable & Responsible Travel’ is also being held on June 19. The G20 Tourism Working Group meeting and Tourism Ministerial meeting in Goa aim to strengthen economic growth, preserve cultural heritage, and promote sustainable development of the region, she said.
“We are going to set up a dashboard around tourism and sustainable development goals. We have collected several case studies on how various countries are taking different initiatives for the promotion of tourism and sustainable development goals. Each participating country has case studies that are a good source of learning. We are going to put all that on a dashboard, which will continue for the next three years irrespective of all presidencies,” said Rakesh Kumar Verma, additional secretary, Ministry of Tourism.
The dashboard will be available to all G20 member countries and other stakeholders. “We will curate case studies and put them on the dashboard. It will be opened to all stakeholders so that they can also learn, customise and replicate,” Verma added.
There are two key deliverables of the Tourism Working Group, which are GOA Roadmap for tourism as a vehicle for achieving sustainable development goals and G20 Tourism Ministers’ Declaration. The focus is on making India a hub for cruise tourism. Deliberation will take place on various challenges and opportunities for developing cruise tourism in the country following the principles of sustainability.
“The deliberation upon Multi Facets of Cruise Tourism (Coastal, Island, Regional and Yachting), perspectives from the Coastal States, private and public stakeholders in inland waterways, and perspectives from the Riverine States will be the focus areas of discussion during the event,” Vidyavathi said.