Sultan Ahmed, Union Minister of State for Tourism releases Approach Paper for Rural Tourism in AP

According to a PIB release, at a two-day National Rural Tourism Workshop in Hyderabad recently, Sultan Ahmed, Union Minister of State for Tourism released the Approach Paper (document which aims to provide preliminary guidelines to enable the States/UTs prepare proposals) for Rural Tourism in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is the first state to have released such a document. Geetha Reddy, Minister of Tourism, Andhra Pradesh was also present on the occasion.

After releasing the Approach Paper, Ahmed said that his Ministry will take initiatives at the Centre to have better inter-ministerial coordination for promotion and marketing of Rural Tourism products both at domestic and international level. The workshop also witnessed presentation of four case studies by rural sites and presentation on use of MIS software. All participants of the workshop had a field visit to Pochampally village, a Rural Tourism site in Andhra Pradesh for on-the-spot study of the site.

Ahmed mentioned that the Rural Tourism Projects initially started in 2003-04 when Ministry of Tourism (MoT) partnered by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took up this initiative.