950818

Incentives

package on anvil

to promote

tourism

KARACHI: The federal government has reactivated the National Tourism Council and taken measures to promote domestic tourism by offering new incentives.

"The government is serious to promote tourism inside and outside the country. The National Tourism Council has been reactivated and given fresh mandate to work out a practical policy to promote the essential and important Tourism Industry," official sources said here on Thursday.

The council headed by Begum Shahnaz Wazir Ali, special assistant to the Prime Minister has been given the task of completely reviewing the 1990 tourism policy.

The main objective of the tourism council include efforts to promote Pakistan as a tourist destination abroad, encourage domestic tourism and improve the infrastructure. It was now working on a new package of incentives for the tourism sector, the sources added.

Special emphasis was being placed on domestic tourism as more and more people were travelling inside the country which showed their increasing desire to explore Pakistan.

The new package expected to attract hotel industry, airlines, transporters and other related sector includes measures for extension of loans on attractive terms, rebates and concessions to foreign investors and tax and tariff relaxation to import tourist oriented goods and equipment.

The sources admitted that Pakistan's share in the world tourism industry was almost negligible and a lot more needs to be done to catch up with neighbours like India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Efforts were now directed to introduce new package of incentives with the help of Board of Investment to provide the much needed boost to the tourism industry including possibility of opening up offices in key countries.

The sources pointed out that one of the major reason for lack of efforts by various agencies to promote tourist industry was non-availability of funds during the past decade.