Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 3 (IANS) The tourism ministry has, for the first time, organised a three-day training programme for its overseas officials by experts at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in an effort to sharpen their marketing skills.
Talking about the programme, Tourism Minister Kumari Selja said Monday that the ministry’s officials will be trained to promote India better.

“Our overseas officials who promote India as an ideal travelling destination will get this training on better and more effective marketing and promotion technique from IIT Delhi’s management wing. It will be a three-day training programme,” Selja said at the inaugural function of the ministry’s two-day overseas marketing meet here.

“After this, we are planning a similar training programme for our domestic officials as well,” Selja added.

Twenty tourism officials will attend the first programme.

“This meet is very important, especially in the light of the global meltdown and its drastic effects on tourism. From January to June this year our foreign tourist arrival fell by 9.3 percent as compared to last year,” Selja said.

“However, our efforts to bring India back on the tourists’ map, the several roadshows in different countries and promotion of niche tourism products has ensured that in June this year there was a positive growth of 0.2 percent in the foreign tourist arrival to India,” she added.

Selja further said that the meet, which will see overseas tourism officials and the private sector here interacting, is bound to throw up innovative ideas to attract more travellers to the country.