Assures to boost Brand Vizag

In order to give a much-needed impetus to the city’s tourism and hospitality sector, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Mr GVL Narasimha Rao recently held discussions with travel industry and hotel associations’ representatives for promotion of tourism in Visakhapatnam as part of “Vision Visakhapatnam 2030” initiative.

GVL highlighted the need for ‘positioning’ Brand Visakhapatnam as a unique travel destination with its unique nature’s resources and beauty.

Stakeholders of the industry identified acute shortage of skilled workers with hospitality, housekeeping, and culinary skills. 

GVL suggested that the tourism sector offers a great opportunity for training and employing the local youth by creating the necessary training facilities and infrastructure.

He therefore said that he would coordinate with the government agencies for setting up such suitable facilities and infrastructure in Visakhapatnam.

The MP also opined that there are no incentives or encouragement from the state government to the tourism and hotel sector and thus even in a big city like Visakhapatnam, the occupancy rate of hotels is not more than 50 to 60 percent.

MP GVL said that in such a situation, there is a need for the tourism industry to prepare an integrated plan for the development of tourism in Visakhapatnam region. 

This he said would require adopting innovative marketing ideas to position Visakhapatnam with its unmatched nature’s resources and beauty as a unique destination in the country.

MP GVL concluded that promoting “Brand Visakhapatnam” and leveraging new infrastructure like the international cruise terminal would help establish it as a major tourist destination not just for leisure tourism but also for eco-tourism, conference tourism, medical tourism etc.

The meeting was attended by AP Chamber of Commerce Chairman, Visakhapatnam Chapter Mr. Srinath Chitturi, CII Vice-Chairman Mr. Grandhi Rajesh and representatives from hotel, travel and tourism fields. 

As part of “Vision Visakhapatnam 2030”, MP GVL has already held meetings with the representatives of shipping, pharma, fertilisers, chemicals and aqua sector industries from Visakha- patnam and arranged interactions of industry representatives with union ministers to prepare a road map for development of these sectors.

There is an imminent need to identify ways to make Vizag a high-end tourist destination & we need to prepare a road map for the same.