E-Paper
37th IATO Annual Convention: Meet returns to Lucknow today after 26 years
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath will be the chief guest at the inauguration of the convention on Friday
The 37th IATO Annual Convention is going to be held from December 16 -19 at The Centrum Hotel, Lucknow. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath will be the chief guest at the inauguration of the convention on Friday, Rajiv Mehra, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) said while addressing the media on Thursday.
Mehra also said that the tourism minister of Odisha, Ashwini Kumar Patra, will be present at the inauguration function while the tourism minister of Maharashtra, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, will be present at the valedictory function on December 18. Rajiv Bansal, secretary civil aviation and Arvind Singh, secretary tourism, government of India, will also be present during the inaugural function.
Mehra thanked Mukesh Kumar Meshram, principal secretary and director-general, tourism, and Ashwini Kumar Panday, special secretary tourism and MD, Uttar Pradesh Tourism. He also thanked the entire team of UP Tourism for extending support to IATO and bringing the convention to Lucknow after a gap of 26 years. He said that the IATO’s last convention in Lucknow was held in 1996.
Also, at the press conference, it was announced that UP Tourism has declared The Centrum Hotel as a five-star facility. The announcement was made officially in the presence of IAS Prakhar Mishra, director UP Tourism, Ravi Gosain chairman -IATO convention, Rajiv Mehra - president IATO, and IAS Ashwini Pandey - special secretary/managing director UPSTDC (tourism) and other delegates.
Ashwini Panday, special secretary tourism and MD, UPSTDC said that tourism will be one of the important pillars to make UP, one trillion-dollar economy. A lot of development work has taken place including redevelopment of Ayodhya and Kashi Vishwanath Corridor which has changed the destiny of tourism in the state. He also informed that more than 7 crore tourists have already visited Varanasi in the last one year when Kashi Vishwanath Corridor was thrown open to the public by Prime Minister Modi.
Prakhar Misra, director tourism, UP government, elaborated on the tourism policy of Uttar Pradesh which incentivises the industry to invest in the state and make it an important contributor of state’s GDP.
The state government is focussing extensively on rural tourism and under this initiative, 18 model villages have been identified for rural development to promote experiential tourism. Besides, the state government is also pushing for river cruise tourism along the Varanasi, Ayodhya region. The department of tourism has signed an MoU with Antara Cruise for the longest river cruise in India. Also, boat clubs have been developed in Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, and Kanpur under various schemes.
Prateek Hira, chairman, IATO Uttar Pradesh and co-chairman of the convention, said that they were waiting to welcome delegates and showcase Uttar Pradesh to them through the post-convention tours that are going to be organised immediately after the convention.
