Vatti pleads for tourism varsity

Calls for interaction between departments and corporations in sector Venkat Parsa New Delhi: State Tourism Minister Vatti Vasant Kumar on Thursday made a pitch for setting up National University for Tourism and Hospitality in Andhra Pradesh. He said the State Government will offer the necessary land to the Union Tourism Ministry. Stating that it has established premium tourism institutes such as IITTM, NITHM and IHMs, he said, "I request the Tourism Ministry to encourage all these institutes to branch out to research-oriented programmes that will benefit the industry. The tourism and hospitality education in our country is very much fragmented today with syllabus varying from one place to another." Participating in the National Tourism Ministers Conference here on Thursday, Vatti said, "There was a proposal to establish a national university dedicated to tourism and hospitality trade and bring homogeneous syllabus to provide excellence in hospitality education. I urge Hon'ble Minister (K Chiranjeevi) to expedite the matter and establish the National University. Andhra Pradesh will be pleased to host this by providing necessary land." The rail-cum-road tourist packages are gaining immense popularity, he pointed out. With the successful operation of Southern Splendour and Golden Chariot (which are covering most of the popular tourist destinations in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) there is tremendous potential for extending the tour itinerary to cover important places in Andhra Pradesh such as Tirupati and Hyderabad. This will provide the tourists to experience two more diverse destinations, one is Hyderabad, the city of pearls, and second, the most-visited temple in India, Tirupati. "From our side, at both these places, the APTDC has necessary infrastructure and resources to provide ground handling," he said. Vatti said on the sidelines of the conference that there should be regular interactions among State Tourism Departments and Tourism Corporations to share their experiences and case studies for mutual benefit. One area of concern is that of synergy with other ministries, he said. Several of Andhra Pradesh tourist attractions are managed and controlled by other departments and ministries. A case is the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which manages and controls several of tourism attractions. However, it has become very difficult to implement tourism development initiatives at these monuments because of the stringent conditions prevailing in granting permissions. Even though ASI is unable to provide the necessary amenities to the tourists as per the growing requirements, they are also unable to grant necessary permissions to provide the same by the Tourism Ministry. The efforts of the Tourism Ministry to provide amenities should be seen as critical for the growth and conservation of the monuments rather than as intrusion into their territory. He requested Union Tourism Minister K Chiranjeevi to have an immediate meeting with his counterpart in Culture Ministry to sort out this issue.