Srinagar, June 8: Secretary, Tourism & Culture, Sarmad Hafeez, today held detailed deliberations with tourism stakeholders from Kashmir regarding present status of tourism sector in the region.
The meeting was attended by Director Tourism Kashmir, G N Itoo; Director SKICC, Bakshi Javed Humayun; Deputy Director, Tourism (Registration), Ahsan-ul-Haq Chisthi, representatives of travel and tour operators, white water rafting, mountaineering, hiking and trekking besides cycling and other concerned.
The representatives put forth different issues and suggestions for tourism promotion with respect to their concerned fields in the Kashmir valley.
Speaking on the occasion, Secretary impressed upon the stakeholders to use social media platforms as marketing and promotional tools and rope in social media influencers and bloggers to promote our tourist destinations worldwide.
Sarmad Hafeez maintained that J&K has a huge potential in terms of tourism and recreational activities where the local stakeholders from the tourism sector would offer and advertise tourist destinations to people outside so that the Union Territory would be number one tourist destination in the country.
He asked the stakeholders to organize events like cycling; mountain biking, hiking, mountaineering, recreational water sports and related activities so that national as well as international players would be invited for such events in order to promote J&K tourism.
He said visiting tourists could be facilitated in such activities at different destinations through information brochures, hiring shops, recreational equipments among other facilities.
Events like marathon cycling will have international value where the best people from the country could be invited to take part, he said.
He said both the department and the stakeholders should work together for betterment of tourism sector as the intent of the government is to help local stakeholders to take maximum benefit through these tourism activities.