PM Modi bats for special packages to promote Indian states for destination weddings
NEW DELHI: Spelling out the potential of tourism in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday suggested ways to promote states as ‘wedding destinations’ to boost tourism. He urged to create an environment in the country so that people can go to different states to solemnize weddings according to the local traditions.
“Today, destination weddings are a big business. People go to foreign countries. Can special packages be announced for weddings in our states? I will say that there should be an environment in our country; the people of Gujarat should feel that for their weddings, Tamil Nadu should be the place and marriages should be conducted as per Tamil customs. If a family has two children, someone will think of an Assamese traditional wedding for one and Punjabi style for another,” said the PM.
Modi was addressing a post-budget webinar on ‘Developing Tourism in Mission Mode’. It was the seventh of the 12-post-budget webinar series being organized by the Government to seek ideas and suggestions for effective implementation of the initiatives announced in the Union Budget 2023.
Modi further added that at present, only selected places are being explored for destination weddings.
“Destination wedding business has a big potential. Elites go abroad but middle-class and upper-middle-class people go to local destinations and it has newness. Whenever there is a novelty, it becomes a life-long memory. We haven’t been working in this direction; only limited states are doing it in their own method,” said the PM underlining the need to think out of the box and plan to take tourism in India to new heights.
Modi busted the myth that tourism is a fancy word associated only with the high-income groups of the country.
“Some feel that tourism is a fancy word and represents only high-income groups. If we see it in the Indian context, tourism’s sphere is bigger and very old. We have had yatras (pilgrimage) for centuries. They have been part of our culture and social life. People used to go on pilgrimage even when there were no resources available to them,” said he while citing the examples of ‘Char Dham Yatra’, ‘Dwadash Jyotirling Yatra’, and ‘51 Shaktipeeth Yatra’.
He also talked about the lack of facilities at spiritual-religious sites in the past and added that spruced-up facilities lead to an increase in the attraction among tourists.
He informed that around 80 lakh people would visit Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi in a year before it was rebuilt, but the tourist footfall crossed seven crores last year after the renovation.
The PM also stressed promoting school and college trips to the northeast so that more people become aware and start developing infrastructure and facilities for tourists. He insisted on developing 50 such tourist destinations that every tourist from around the globe is bound to visit on his trip to India.