Speakers at a seminar stressed the need of establishing motel service to promote tourism in the country. These views were expressed at a seminar on 'Travel Hospitality' organized on the sidelines of Pakistan Travel Mart (PTM) 2018 at Expo Centre, Karachi. They said hotel industry should be facilitated if the government was keen to promote tourism in the country.
The second day of Pakistan Travel Mart (PTM) 2018 was inaugurated by Firdous Shamim Naqvi opposition leader of Sindh Assembly along with KP Tourism Minister Atif Khan. Naqvi said Sindh government did nothing during last 10 years for tourism and criticized Syed Sardar Shah Sindh minister for culture and tourism for his statement regarding the meeting convened at Banigala on it.
He said if Sindh minister for culture and tourism had a vision to promote tourism then why no action had so far been taken to protect the tourists spot in Karachi, being affected by wastewater. Moreover, he said federal government was willing to take all provinces on board for the promotion of tourism.
KP Tourism Minister Atif Khan said after 18th amendment, the tourism industry was a provincial matter and added that no one in the world was in favour to recognize Pakistan at international level.
Furthermore, he said tourism was the only way to portray soft image of the country and there were serious issues in our visa policy, which needed to be addressed to ensure the availability of all facilities pleaded through visa policy.
There is a need of evolving comprehensive strategy for promoting local tourism within the country and added that KP government in order to market its tourism engaged the services from private sector.
Byram D Avari, a leading businessman from hotel industry urged the Prime Minister Imran Khan to heed on developing service sector instead of spending heavy on infrastructure projects. The event received an overwhelming response as there were a significant number of dignitaries attending this mega event.