Published on : Friday, June 22, 2018
The reason Rawat thinks the yoga day will boost tourism is because of the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the mega event which he reasons was watched by people across the world.
“Hosting the the main International Yoga Day event undoubtedly gave a new identity to Uttarakhand as 193 countries watched it.
“As Prime Minister Modi himself participated in the event, Uttarakhand will get a world class platform. It would really attract domestic as well as foreign tourists,” Rawat said.
If tourism gets a boost, it will help in creating new jobs and business opportunities in the state.
Rawat said the attraction of foreign tourists towards Uttarakhand is mainly because it is famous as an yoga centre of India. After this event, the state’s fame will “definitely increase”.
He said more than 35 volunteers of foreign countries participated in this event and did yoga ‘asanas’ along with nearly 50,000 people in the sprawling lawn of Dehradun’s Forest Research Institute (FRI).
Over 45,000 people did yoga postures on mats while around 5,000 people, including security forces, witnessed the event.
Officials in Uttarakhand administration said domestic tourist footfall in the state after the 2013 disaster fell by over 25 per cent while it went down by over 20 per cent in terms of foreign tourism.
Tourism has again picked up, and officials expect the International Yoga Day to give it a further boost.