More than 140 people who were trained at the Ahmedabad-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) have become entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in the last one year.

EDII, an acknowledged national resource institute for entrepreneurship education, research, training and institution building, has enabled 142 trainees to become entrepreneurs in tourism sector.

They have been imparted training in the fields of travel consultancy, art and craft, food business and logistics related to tourism sector, SB Sareen, Senior Faculty, EDII, said here on Thursday.

Out of the 500 people trained, 286 have either created their own enterprises or have been employed in the tourism sector. Also, 142 entrepreneurs who created their own enterprises have generated employment for 270 more people. Around ₹43 lakh has been invested by these successful entrepreneurs.

Altogether 144 people have found wage-based employment in private sector; while the rest are either in the process of setting up their own enterprise or are studying further.He said the objective of this programme was to ensure generation of self-employment, promotion of entrepreneurship and assist entrepreneurs in creating their own enterprise through training, guidance and consultancy.

For this, EDII provided classroom guidance, educational tours and interaction with successful entrepreneurs and officials of financial institutions to create awareness about funding to be raised, various schemes of the Government and development of websites.

EDII is now planning to offer such training programmes in other state-level centres that are major tourist attractions, said Sunil Shukla, Director, EDII.