NEW DELHI: With some of the Indian embassies and missions abroad seeking reopening of overseas tourism offices, the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture has asked the ministry of tourism whether the decision to shut down the dedicated divisions for tourism promotional activities was taken with the consonance of consulates.
The development has come after some embassies and missions had conveyed their concerns about lack of financial and human resources support to carry out activities for tourism promotion through a dedicated ‘tourism officer’. Following the decision taken to close all overseas tourism offices by the Centre, the responsibility of promoting Indian tourism destinations was entrusted with a ‘tourism officer’, a first or second secretary rank official already serving in the Indian diplomatic office in foreign countries.
“The committee notes that some missions had requested that the overseas offices may be kept open and the vacant posts filled. The committee wishes to know whether the decision had been taken in consonance with the missions. Since the overseas tourist offices are closed, the onus of promoting Indian tourism is solely on the Indian missions. The committee, however, notes that the general feeling of the Indian missions is that the role of tourism promotion has been allocated to them without proper financial and human resource augmentation,” read the report of the Parliamentary Panel presented to the Rajya Sabha on March 24.
The closure of the overseas tourism offices began in 2018. Subsequently, tourism officers were appointed in 20 countries from where tourist arrival is the highest such as Bangladesh, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Australia, France, and Germany. Last seven functional overseas tourism offices in London, Beijing, Singapore, New York, Frankfurt, Dubai and Tokyo were shut on March 31. According to the report, the Indian High Commission in Australia and embassy in Rome recommended reopening of the overseas tourism office.
The Indian embassy in Paris also requested for continuation and resource amplification instead of closing down the tourism office. Flagging the issues of budgetary allocation and manpower, Indian High Commission in Singapore informed the Panel that the two posts of first (economic) and second secretary (commerce) are lying vacant for more than a year.
