Federal Minister for Tourism, Nilofar Bakhtiar has said the "Visit Pakistan Year" is going on successfully and the government has focused on three tourism sectors on priority basis, including adventure tourism, cultural tourism and religious and spiritual tourism.
She was addressing the inaugural session of the two-day UNWTO conference at a local hotel here on Wednesday. Among others, Dr Taleb Rifai, Deputy Secretary General of the World Tourism Organisation, Bern Bernadette Rounds Ganilau, Minister of Labour Industry, Relations, Tourism and Environment, FIJI, XU Jing, UNWTO Regional Representative in Asia and the Pacific, GU Zhaoxi, Chairman CAP, Salman Javed, PTDC Managing Director and delegates from various countries of the world were present on the occasion.
Nilofar said that Pakistan had relaxed its visa policies for 24 countries to attract maximum number of tourists, adding that special counters had been established at country's airports to enable tourists to get their visas there.
She said Pakistan had great potential for tourism due to its diversity of cultures, religion and climate adding that this needed to be explored.
She said that the country enjoyed 9000-year old cultural history, adding that there were thousands of years old churches, over 5000-year old Buddhist monuments, birthplace of Sikhs' spiritual leader, Guru Nanak and sacred places of other religions.
In addition, the country has highest mountain peaks and so many other attractions for the tourists. Saying that Pakistan had been facing negative image problem, Nilofar described the tourism as essential element for image-building of the country and for enhancing economic growth.
She said Pakistan proudly stood up in the war against terrorism and deplored that it was still being labelled as extremist country. She said that Pakistan was a moderate and tolerant country, which enjoys diversity of cultures and religions.
She stressed upon WTO and the participants to play their due role to give a boost to tourism industry of Pakistan by presenting its true image in the world.
She said that Pakistan wanted friendly relations with neighbouring countries to promote tourism industry, adding that establishment of joint tour operators of India and Pakistan were on cards to provide groups visas.
She expressed the hope that Pakistan would be recognised as tourism destination in the world map very soon. Dr Talib Rifai also spoke on the occasion and said that tourism was emerging as the industry of the future, which witnessed tremendous growth in past few years.
Dispelling the negative image about Pakistan, Talib said, "it is my message to all countries of the world that Pakistan is open for tourism." He stressed the need for facilitating the people to move from one place to another to give boost to the tourism industry.