UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has promised a major boost to heritage tourism in Uttar Pradesh.
Speaking at a seminar on heritage tourism, organised by UP tourism, the chief minister said here on Sunday that Uttar Pradesh has innumerable heritage sites which had tremendous tourism potential.
“Here is a problem of plenty. We have so many heritage sites that we do not know where to start from. I think it would be good if we started from Bateshwar near Agra since it is close to Agra and already has a huge tourist footfall,” he said.
Mr Yadav said that heritage tourism was like re-visiting history and it was the duty of the present generation to preserve the heritage and present it to the future generations.
In a lighter vein, the chief minister said, “UP is leading in politics. There must be millions of police stations in the country but the national news is never complete unless it features a report from one of the police stations in UP.”
He assured that his government will support the promotion of heritage tourism in every possible way and will also help in ironing out the problems.
UP tourism minister Om Prakash Singh outlined the plans that the state has to develop heritage sites and promote heritage tourism. He said heritage tourism gave an opportunity for the local culture, cuisine, fairs and festival of a place to get international recognition.
Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur, and also founder president of Heritage Hotels Association of India, who was the guest speaker at the seminar, pointed out the problems that lie in promotion of heritage tourism.
He said that the role of the government comes in where ownership problems of heritage sites exist. He said that development of infrastructure like roads around the heritage sites was equally important and special policies must be framed for heritage tourism.
Underlining the immense potential in UP, he said that pilgrim destinations which abound in UP could easily be turned into sites for heritage hotels as well.
Maharaja Gaj Singh said that heritage tourism initially attracted the maximum number of foreign tourists but following the recession, it was Indian tourists who were visiting heritage hotels in large numbers.