Independent tourism authority demanded

Conference calls for promotion of public-private partnership to achieve targets for tourism sector

RAWALPINDI: Participants of a roundtable conference on tourism on Sunday passed a unanimous resolution calling for setting up an independent, national tourism authority which can take measures for the promotion of tourism in the country.

They further said that public-private partnership should be promoted to achieve targets for this sector.

The Pakistan Tourism Conference was chaired by Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) Managing Director Abdul Ghafoor and was attended by representatives of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) experts Harry Hwang and George Drakopoulos.



Ghafoor said that every country in the world had a national tourism body and Pakistan should also have one. He further said that it was time to take bold steps in this regard and requested Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to convert PTDC into an independent National Tourism Authority.

The PTDC chief hoped that he would be able to achieve the target of forming Tourism Authority in Pakistan within weeks instead of months or years.



He further underlined the need for a tourism policy and informed that he, along with his team, is working on it.

He also asked the participants of the conference to present their recommendations in this regard.

The participants including Hwang, Drakopoulos, supported the proposal for setting up a central tourism body and expressed their willingness to fully support it.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2018.