Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently interacted with Young CEOs at the “Champions of Change – Transforming India through G2B partnership” initiative organised by NITI Aayog at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra. In his second address in this series, following his interaction with young entrepreneurs last week, PM Modi exhorted industry stakeholders to become ambassadors of ‘Brand India’ to attract footfalls from the world over.
In a clear message to an industry gathering, comprising of movers and shakers of the financial world, PM asked industry stakeholders to drive tourism by promoting India and Indian destinations. He asked the industry whether they were doing enough to promote India. “All of you must be getting a number of buyers and sellers from all over the world, but how many of you ask them to come for a few extra days for exploring some destination in India?”, he questioned the gathering.
PM mentioned that tourism entailed a “fear of unknown” and hence people-driven advertisement of a destination was the best way to nullify it. “Tourism does not happen only from government’s advertisement. If someone tells somebody else to go somewhere, people definitely go, because there is a fear of unknown in travel. It is in-build,” he said.
Adding that people related to pharmacy offered doctors sponsored tours, but opted for international destinations like Singapore or to Dubai, he said “they do not feel that they should take them to Hampi in Karnataka, and say that let us explore six good things. We do not promote our own things.”
The PM batted for promoting Indian heritage and culture, and refraining from “artificial tourism”. “We should not think of offering the world an artificial and technologically created tourism. If we introduce our heritage to the rest of the world, the world will surely come to see us,” he stressed.
He also said that the Government wanted to move towards making India a less-cash society and asked CEOs to partner with Government to build momentum in this regard.
Prior to the PM’s address, six groups of young CEOs made presentations before the PM on themes such as Make in India; Doubling Farmers’ Income; World Class Infrastructure; Cities of Tomorrow; Reforming the Financial Sector; and New India by 2022.
