Address of the Hon'ble Vice President of
India Shri M. Hamid Ansari at the National Tourism Awards Presentation
Function on 3rd March, 2010 at 1600 hours at Plenary Hall, Vigyan
Bhavan, New Delhi.
Tourism has also emerged as an important provider of employment
and a significant contributor to prosperity of nations. It enables
‘people-to-people contacts’ and thus contributes to
a better understanding of diverse cultures and languages.
India is an ideal tourist destination. History,
rich cultural heritage, diversity of flora, fauna and landscapes
contribute to it in great measure. Despite this, our full potential
is yet to be tapped. We recorded over 5 million foreign tourist
arrivals, in addition to about 550 million domestic tourist
visits. Even so, tourism is an important sector of our economy
and has contributed over US$ 11 billion to our foreign exchange
earnings in 2009.
More.
