There is a need to come up with the National Tourism Policy for the development of one of the largest job creating sectors in the country, recommended Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at the 15th annual tourism event here on Thursday.

The theme "Tourism: Creating opportunities and Economic Growth" also mentioned that tourism should be given export status while hotels should get infrastructure status.

"We should move towards quality tourism by not only providing world class products but world class experiences too. Sustainable management practices should be adopted for heritage sites to provide world class experience to tourists," said Amitabh Kant Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog.

Kant also urged the private sector to work with the Ministry of Tourism to make the country as one of the 100 tourist destinations in the world. He also put forth a vision that the tourism sector should reach 50 billion dollar by 2022.

Tourism is a sector that cuts across multiple other sectors and is driven by the urge to get a new experience thereby becoming a very effective revenue generator, said the statement.

"Government has also been implementing tourism friendly interventions such as towards reducing of GST and rationalization of visa fees. Other operational initiatives undertaken include launching of the Incredible India Plan that started in 2018. We have also brought about a change in our training programs destination based therefore resulting in realistic demand," said Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism.

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