India must urgently adopt 'open sky' policy to give a fillip to the tourism industry, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Thursday.
"Adoption of open sky policy will mean tremendous opportunities for development of tourism and tapping the real potential existing in the country," Naidu said while inaugurating the Second Conference of Southern States' Tourism Ministers in Hyderabad.
Noting that India accounted for a mere 0.38 per cent of the total world tourist traffic, he said the country attracted 2.67 million international tourists last year as against 31.1 million tourists by China, 19 millions by Malaysia, 13 millions by Hong Kong and 9.6 millions by Thailand.
"There is a huge potential in the country waiting to be tapped. One of the surest ways to exploit this potential is to develop inter-state circuits with improved co-ordination," the chief minister said.
Naidu, who has been a strong advocate of open sky policy and liberalisation of civil aviation sector, said the era of rigid 'isms' was now over and 'the only ism which has future is tourism'.
The day-long conference, being attended by tourism ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry, would deliberate on measures to develop inter-state tourist circuits to develop southern states as the most preferred tourism destination in the country.
Outlining the potential of tourism, Naidu said this industry's contribution to the gross domestic product stood at Rs 51,320 crore (Rs 513.2 billion) and was expected to go up to Rs 232,700 crore (Rs 2,327 billion) by 2012.
The industry's employment potential was also set to increase from 24 millions jobs to 31 million by 2012, he said.
Naidu said his government was according top priority to the tourism sector and was keen to promote heritage and pilgrim tourism in a big way.
