UNWTO Asia/Pacific Executive Training Program on Tourism Policy and Strategy starts

Published on : Tuesday, March 20, 2018

The UNWTO Asia/Pacific Executive Training Program on Tourism Policy and Strategy started off with Union Minister of State for Tourism K J Alphonse inaugurating the event at Kovalam.

 
Organized by the Regional Program for Asia and the Pacific, which is the UNWTO’s operational arm, the Executive Training Program has ‘Tourism and Technology’ as its focal theme. After the launching of the event, K J Alphonse said “The promotional video put up on the ITB Berlin trade fair has garnered 17 million views in 12 days which showcases the power of social media and digital technology.

Social media and technology plays a huge part when tourists zero in on destinations to travel to. Therefore we must update our tourism promotional policies according to the rapidly developing technology. Electronic travel visas implemented by the Indian government are one such step towards the harnessing potential of technology in the sector.1 million tourists out of the 10 million who visited India in last year have made use of E visas. We hope to raise the number to 3 million in the coming year.”

 
Mr. Xu Jing, Director, Regional Programme for Asia and Pacific UNWTO said, “2017 has recorded highest growth rate of international tourist arrivals across the borders of the world since 2010 coming in at 7 per cent. Asia and Pacific accounts for 25 per cent of the global market share and 30 per cent of the tourism income of market share. International growth rate in the sub region of South Asia achieved a growth rate of 10 per cent in 2017 led by India at the rate by 15 per cent.”

Tags: UNWTO