WRITTEM BY CH. FAISAL MAHMOOD
The Tourism industry worldwide has been developing faster and deeper since the turn of the present century. Not only have the very concept of Tourist Products obtained new meanings, the various sectors serving those products have also acquired different profiles and different dynamics.
Last week PM Khan chaired a meeting in Islamabad regarding developing and creating Integrated Tourism Zones while simultaneously ensuring eco-tourism, biodiversity and natural beauty of tourist resorts. The federal government is planning as many as 11 Integrated Tourism Zones, three in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eight Zones are being established in Punjab for tourism boost. We wonder why the federal government couldn’t see the many such places in Sindh and Baluchistan where we can develop such zone.
The tourism seniors of Sindh also notice that when Federal government invited Punjab and KP tourism ministers to attend the meeting, there was no harm to invite Sindh tourism minister also as long as the tourism agenda was under discuss.
Holiday strongly believe that tourism can be promoted by best possible way when there is untied approach by all the stakeholders including governments.
The World Travel and Tourism Council Summit 2019 held in Seville, Spain. The summit was a lineup of top tourism leaders in the private industry together with political tourism leaders. It would have much better for our tourism team of the federal government to attend that event.
We again appreciate Landmark communications and its CEO Mr. Hamdani for making all out efforts to grow Pakistan tourism sector by organizing different tourism oriented events in Pakistan. Their organizing of Pakistan Travel Summit in Islamabad by all means was a big achievement. The landmark communications brought under one roof and on one platform the all major stakeholders of tourism sector leaving few exceptions. We are sure after results of the event will be very productive and encouraging for the tourism sector of Pakistan.
Our present politicians responded positively to the idea of Pakistan Travel summit and supported the event by their presence on both days. But being new in the field they still need to learn a lot.
There too The PM spoke in volume about tourism magnets of Pakistan, about untouched mountains, deserts and the virgin coastal belt in the southwestern Baluchistan province. Somehow Sindh tourism was remained less represented, less projected and of course less spoken about and both days one part of Pakistan dominated the event.
We strongly believe that it is e good for the region and people of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to meet with tourists of different countries. But our suggestions to the government are that not to move fast and please don’t open such sensitive area to the world. Here we need to move carefully and slowly keeping in mind the recent past and social and cultural sensitivities of the tribal belt.
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