STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on Thursday chaired a meeting of the Tourism and Culture Departments called for discussing the broad contours of the strategy to promote religious, craft and heritage tourism in the UT.
During the meeting, Chief Secretary observed that the UT besides being treasure of natural beauty has a very rich heritage, culture, crafts and cuisine. He maintained that such strengths of our UT together with its established tourism sector can increase the footfall to such places substantially.
He asked for having collaboration with the Academy of Art, Culture and Languages for organizing cultural activities at such places to attract the culture enthusiasts. He made out for formulating 2-3 days plans based upon the circuits devised and for the ease of visitors.
Dulloo also emphasized upon carrying out promotional campaigns to popularize all these circuits taking strengths of each of these into consideration. He even suggested taking the aid of the celebrities coming here for devising promos for our tourist destinations. He further told them to carryout both outdoor publicity besides carrying out the in-house information on the departmental websites and Social Media handles of the Department.
The meeting, besides Principal Secretary, Culture and Commissioner Secretary, Tourism was also attended by Divisional Commissioner Kashmir/Jammu; Executive Director, Mubarak Mandi Jammu Heritage Society; Director Tourism, Jammu/Kashmir and other concerned officers.
The meeting discussed different circuits and places of heritage to be included for the interest of the visitors. The Commissioner Secretary, Culture Suresh Kumar Gupta gave insights into the possible circuits the Department is proposing to promote. In addition the Commissioner Secretary, Tourism, Yasha Mudgal also laid down her plan of promotion for such exquisite places.
The current footfall and physical status of such places was deliberated upon. It also took into consideration the amenities available at such places for the ease of tourists visiting there.
As part of its promotional strategy, the Department of Tourism is taking various initiatives including FAM tour to heritage and pilgrim site, generating user content, iconography and documentation of such places, carrying out digital campaigns, creating mini documentaries, sponsorships and organizing festivals as future plans for promotion of these places in both Jammu and Kashmir divisions.