IANS

Panaji, Mar 6: Union Tourism Secretary Sujit Banerjee Friday cautioned that tourism, if pursued in an unplanned fashion, could be a threat to forest land and animal corridors in the country.

"Everyone has to keep a vigil in ensuring that the forest land and animal corridors do not shrink because of the pressures of unplanned tourism activities," Banerjee said at the inauguration of the tourism ministry's domestic tourism roadshow where tourism industry stakeholders from all over the country participated.

He also encouraged the industry stakeholders to "adopt solid waste management practices, encourage alternative energy sources and protect fragile mountain ranges from the impact of unrestricted growth".

Regretting the fact that other countries in Southeast Asia were virtually running away with the larger share of the foreign pie in this part of the world, Banerjee said that it was essential to create awareness amongst Indians that tourism is "bread and butter".

"How is it that our neighbouring countries get foreign tourists in greater number? Indonesia gets 19 million, Singapore gets 14 million, Malaysia gets 12 million and India which is larger than all three of them gets only 5 million? For the last three years we have been going at a slow pace," Banerjee said, adding that tourism was one of the driving forces in an economy plagued by recession.

He said that domestic tourism was the way ahead for India. "For years now we have been going abroad holding such roadshows for foreign tourists. But how many foreign tourists could we attract? 5 million," he said.

"On the other hand, there are nearly 563 million domestic tourists. And what are we giving them? Dirty trains, dirty platforms, dirty civic amenities, pot holed roads... but things are changing now," he said.

The roadshow in Goa is the fourth such event held by the tourism ministry to promote domestic tourism in the state in the current fiscal. Similar roadshows have earlier been held in West Bengal, Bangalore and Bodh Gaya to cater to the eastern and the southern tourism markets respectively.