In his maiden appearance in a public event after taking over as the cabinet minister for culture and tourism in the national capital, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said that Buddhist tourists stays longer than other spiritual tourists of other religions at their favourite spiritual destinations and therefore connectivity and accessibility to destinations alone cannot make their experience at the destination rewarding. He said that the Buddhist tourists look for more activities to engage in at these destinations. Therefore, it is important for tourism boards to develop an ecosystem around these destinations to keep these visitors engaged, the minister said.
Despite being a cradle of Buddhism, India gets only 2.6 lakh Buddhist tourists in a year out of the estimated 53 million Buddhist tourists. This is .005 percent of the total Buddhist travel for spiritual purpose. Shekhawat said if India is able to “remove one zero”, that will result in an incremental 2 million tourists into India.
He said that the government attributes a lot of importance to Buddhist tourism and that is why the Buddhist circuit got a preeminent position while the government identified different tourist circuits to be developed and promoted with world-class infrastructure. He said that Buddhism is a shared heritage which connects India with most of its neighbours in south and southeast Asia.
Talking about India’s tourism offerings, the tourism minister said that with diverse landscapes, rich history, culture and heritage, India has rich tourism wealth to satiate all kinds of tourist appetite.
Speaking on the occasion, Jaiveer Singh, tourism and culture minister of UP, said that the state has already developed seamless infrastructure connectivity through air, rail, road and water with all the destinations of touristic importance including the Buddhist circuit and now the agenda is to brand and market these destinations both domestically and internationally. He said that the Bodhi Yatra event in the national capital was a step in that direction where the state has invited ambassadors of southeast Asian countries who are important stakeholders of the Buddhist heritage.
Ambassadors of Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Mongolia, among others participated in the event.
