Turkey, a tourism powerhouse in the world, has proposed to the Indian Ministry of Tourism to form a joint working group to promote tourism between the two countries. Speaking to a select media gathering on the sidelines of an event in Delhi recently, Turkish Ambassador to India Dr Burak Akçapar said that time is ripe for furthering the tourism exchange between the two countries given the large potential that this segment offers.
“ We are the sixth largest tourism destination in the world. The volume of India outbound has also steadily gone up in the recent past maintaining a 10 percent annual growth trajectory ( 1,30,000 last year). We want this segment to grow further as the vital link between the two countries and, therefore, we have proposed forming a joint working group to the Indian Tourism Ministry wherein we will try to find out the modalities,” Dr. Akcapar said. He, however, did not specify further details of the proposed move.
Meanwhile, in order to facilitate easy visa facilities to the travellers from India, Turkey (in an exclusive association with VFS Global) has announced the launch of Visa Application Centres across 16 cities in the country. The new centers will become effective from the beginning of the next month. Travellers from India, Nepal, and Maldives can now apply for Turkey visas at centres located in New Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Goa, Puducherry, Kochi, Trivandrum, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kathmandu (Nepal) and Male (Maldives). “ Currently, we are receiving about 100 visa applications a day. This is a major improvement which gives the applicants a better and easier visa service. I am confident that these centres will help us in achieving our aim to make the visa procedure even faster and smoother. I believe that the launch of these visa centres will contribute to the enhancement of the cooperation between Turkey and India in the fields of tourism and economy.”
