Religious tourism: LCCI, ETPB agree to utilise all resources to earn forex

LAHORE: “The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) have agreed to utilise all available resources to promote religious tourism to earn foreign exchange”.

This was stated by Secretary Evacuee Trust Property Board Rana Muhammad Arif in a meeting with LCCI President Kashif Anwar at LCCI here on Thursday.

He was of the view that leading a sustainable religious tourism development for economic growth and to promote soft image of Pakistan, is the need of the hour.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board is working to develop international competitive religious tourism sector to fully realize its diverse potential and making religious tourism a leading economic sector for the country through public private partnership.

Arif said that ETPB has around 70 thousand sites and properties including all the religious shrines and we are trying to explore our tourist sites and to develop infrastructure and accessibility of those sites to earn foreign exchange and to promote the soft image of Pakistan.

He continued by saying that the promotion of religious tourism cannot be achieved by any ministry alone but the role of the private sector is equally important for the purpose.

“We are opening up the closed sites, i.e. example the Samadhi of Ranjeet Singh which was previously closed for the public is now open for the public,” he said adding that the purpose of opening those sites it to promote religious tourism.

He said that the religious tourism ultimately promotes the other tourists sites also and the ETPB is ready and willing to facilitate private sector on all those sites to invest to make stalls and by doing this, those sites, which were previously were not be able to reach, will now be available for all the tourists to visit and the country can earn handsome amount of foreign exchange by promoting religious tourism.

Kartarpur is one of the example of this vision, he added.

LCCI President Kashif Anwar said the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has always emphasised on the promotion of tourism sector. He said that many other sectors are directly or indirectly linked with the tourism industry. He said that the promotion of tourism sector not only boosts economic activities but also creates new employment opportunities.

Kashif Anwar said that for a long time, the LCCI has been presenting its point of view regarding exploiting the potential of religious tourism. He said that there are many cities in Pakistan where domestic and foreign Hindu and Sikh pilgrims are eager to visit their ancient sites but only few go there due to lack of security and other facilities.

He said that Evacuee Trust Property Board is required to take special measures to protect these historical places. He said that due to unfavorable weather changes and lack of maintenance work for a long time, many historical places are deteriorating.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023