NEITC to address tourism sector bottlenecks in NE states

PTI SHILLONG, OCTOBER 13 Stakeholders in the tourism industry of eight North Eastern states today said the state governments should facilitate field visits by embassy officials of those countries who issued travel advisories to their nationals against visiting the states in the region. The North East India Tourism Confederation (NEITC), a confederation of state-level associations of tourism stakeholders from the eight states which was unveiled here, announced they would approach individual state governments on the issue. “We will facilitate field visits by embassy officials of those countries who have issued negative travel advisories to their nationals so that they get a first-hand knowledge of the region,” NEITC president E B Blah told reporters. According to Blah, Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India were 6.97 million with a growth of 5.9 per cent as compared to 6.58 million during 2012 of which the region gets a minute share. The confederation appealed insurgent groups in the region to give tourism industry a chance by not harassing tourists who visit the unexplored regions of the country. It also reached out to various social organisations to exempt tourism-related activities, including travel of tourists, from the purview of shutdowns. On the Inner-Line Permit (ILP), representatives from Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland said the mechanism had no adverse impact on tourism industry. Nagaland Tourism Association president V Vincent Belho said local tour operators were at a loss and were yet to cope up ever since the lifting of the Protected Area Permit (PAP) from the state in 2011.