Indo-German Business Talk: Sustainable Tourism
in India and Germany I have a wonderful panel consisting of two guests I will introduce them in a moment but before I do that I want to remind you that as always we try to bring in not just experts but we also try to involve you the viewers into the conversation and we do that through the platform called slido that we will use to post some questions to you but that you can also use to ask questions questions that you may have to our audience and you can see the links here there are different ways actually that you can access this platform either through one of the two links both will get you to the same destination or you can also snap a photo of that QR code that you can see here and that will also bring you to the dedicated page of our slido platform and I encourage you to open that up yet maybe start thinking about questions that you already have and as we go through the session I will post those questions to our panelists now who are those panelists uh we have two today and the first one is asharia zing isvara is an assistant manager at the ministry of Tourism the government of India and she has an impressive portfol that involves uh work during India's G20 presidency last year she's also a TX speaker and she has a deep passion for the oceans which I find wonderful because I think that's something that we both share her research in the blue economy and Maritime tourism dels into crucial issues such as climate change Maritime security and sustainable development and it emphasizes the ocean's significant role in international relations it's great to have you asario welcome thank you very much thanks and our second panelist is Puna Ka and she is a partner at nanga Anders in India where she leads the public sector business she has over two decades of experience in business development and Consulting and she has helped redefine public sector engagements in digital transformation environments she is an expert in the tourism industry and she has been instrumental in policymaking and promoting sustainable tourism in India and globally which includes initiatives in Nepal Sri Lanka Peru Egypt Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago and she also actively supports social initiatives focused on Youth Empowerment and Healthcare in rural India which is also I think a very interesting Dimension so we'll talk a little bit about the oceans the ocean that surrounds India the rural parts of India and what role tourism may play there and a few other things as well before we do that let me once again real quick show the link to our slide page for those viewers who have just joined you can use any of those uh links there they will all guide you or lead you to the same page where you can ask questions and um we will have a pulling question for you in a moment and actually I think now is time to ask that first question give me one second and the first question that we have is the following what are the biggest challenges in implementing sustainability in tourism oh that's an interesting and a quite big question so please access the page and you can type in your answers and we will show them in a moment while we do that let me get to our panelists and let me start by asking a a very basic question about tourism in India how has tourism in India evolved over the past decade or so and I would like to focus on two things one is domestic tourism within India and the other is international tourism so maybe Puna maybe we'll start with you what what's your take on that what has changed in the past decade uh you know India as a society is very content and they're very happy to be staying wherever they are staying so travel and tourism was not one of their big uh you know achievement or big as aspiration so what they in the last one decade we've seen that people have actually started going out people have started traveling around and people have been uh you know not only exploring Indian destinations but um you know in the near future or uh you know what has gone by in uh Last 5 Years we've seen that there is a major surge of uh especially the youth power who's now getting into travel and tourism in a big way and exploring International destinations in a very very big way it could be education it could be culture it could be Heritage it could be any kind of Adventure tourism which you know inspires them to look at the new destinations and uh I think I give a major credit here to our digital transformation because today the kids or the youth are more hooked on to uh the media the online media so they look at those kind of uh websites blogs which which shows them various different locations which become very interesting for them and uh you know make them decide to explore these new locations maybe India or internationally so it's actually grown quite a lot in the last decade so you said it's been a cultural change in in certain ways this Um passion for traveling for for for leisure is it also an economic uh phenomenon in the way that India's middle class has risen or is continuing to rise more and more people who have also the means to think about something such as traveling for fun see um in the last decade we've seen a rise and we've seen economic transformation happening in India our buying powers are increasing we are we are looking at uh the youth start earning it early age most of them they start working as soon as they are doing their graduation in this case it is uh something which inspires them to look around to look at the new destinations because uh when they start earning they start realizing that they have wings and they can start flying on their own before I mean if I look at maybe more than 10 to 15 years back we were all hooked onto our parents and we would say that we'll go for travel or tourism with our parents but now you'll find lot of solo Travelers who are going from India because they have the power to spend and they uh you know they look at the various opportunities which have come up because of the airbnbs or uh you know the home stays which are more economical and they're easy to spend and uh with the aviation industry going up in such a drastic manner it has seen that the tickets have become very low cost people can now travel with a backpack they don't need to carry huge luggage they have airbnbs they have budget Airlines so that that opens door for them and of course the major thing is uh the buying power and the dependency on their parents have gone down I mean we uh if you look at the Indian culture Indian uh families they were all very uh you know conservative and they were always going out with their parents but today it's changed they they they look at their friends they look at those PA groups does change so culture yes it's changed in a major way so both culture and economy economy we've we've heard about the rise of Tourism within India by Indians both traveling within their country and abroad what about International tourism to India I mean that's not a new thing I think uh I mean India's uh highlights have attracted people from around the world for a long decade is that something that has still grown for you know past decade or so is it just on a stable high level uh see uh if you talk about inbound tourism uh what India attracts so in the last decade India has uh established has tried to establish itself as a major you know tourism destination with Incredible India campaign and uh uh government has also come up with Incredible India 2.2 last year we celebrated visit India year 2023 so all these initiatives have actually impacted uh foreign tourist arrivals and uh uh for uh you know I I I would like to bring this up uh before covid-19 Germany was the uh leading uh you know inbound travel market for India along with the France so if you look at the figures uh how foreign tourists you know visit how much they would like to visit India so the numbers were really going great before covid and uh yeah the uh major shift I'll say uh has come after the covid-19 pandemic uh both in domestic travel and in international travel also people now what the uh there was a concept going on during covid-19 uh like when the you know when we were relaxing the uh travel regulations uh that work from mountains so people uh today do not only uh want to travel or explore the places the Young Generation what uh we were uh you know uh listening from the other panelist before they are looking for a uh they turning more responsible Travelers they don't just want to explore and travel they are uh they want to contribute also they are they are very much uh aware about over tourism problem of over tourism how there are certain destinations uh you know uh they are facing troubles because of over tourism so people are becoming more aware the concept of solo traveling has yes increased and then uh the female number of female Travelers uh as uh as we were discussing that yeah India was not very um uh open to the you know like women traveling alone or was also not considered very uh open for The Travelers for the even International Travelers but there are changes happening and uh uh uh like uh if you talk about the I just want to tell one figure uh the how unwto uh estimates the sustainable Global tourism Market it was estimated at USD 2.73 trillion in 2023 and for the upcoming decade the projections are around USD 9.17 trillion by 2032 so that shows how promising this indust this service industry is and yes India is making you know uh itself a very uh appealing brand to travel uh take it for domestic tourist or for international so yes uh change is coming and yeah because of covid-19 the whatever the progress happened in last decade it has slowed down but yeah to industry is picking up again and I believe uh it will it's it's it looks promising thanks for Point go ahead I would like to highlight here you know it's it's become Revenge traveling now so you'll find lot of people are traveling like left and right uh the tourism numbers both inbound and outbound have been jumping every few months and we seeing a major uh you know flow of in and outborn tourism all across the globe so that's something you know they call it Revenge tourism but that's actually given a major height to the industry which was actually in a very bad shape during the covid time as said that's an interesting term that's revenge on the pandemic basically we're we're getting call Revenge tourism okay that's that's an interesting concept I I just wanted to follow with ashara so you highlighted some of the changes also to International tourism now as someone who's in charge of for promoting India's diversity is um how do you handle the challenge of this um I mean huge but also very diverse uh country in terms of touristy experiences and and I know that I mean there's some kind of highlights everyone has heard about the tach Mahal of course but H how do you manage to uh also promote the Lesser known destinations within that large country isn't that also a challenge that you people people fall back into kind of the the the old well-known cliches of the few highlight destinations the tach Mahal Mumbai maybe a few others uh how do you manage that uh see uh how we perceive it as a yeah they are because every destination has its caring capacity limit for example Agra Taj Mahal is witnessing over tourism so uh yes India is trying to come up with uh uh you know its diverse offering and a a very recent example I'll say uh was the G20 Summit like it was historic Summit uh none like no other country has uh conducted you know uh like so many uh G20 meetings in such diverse locations and then uh the tier two tier three cities that was a a very f example I'll say uh to to Showcase that uh not only the Metro cities the very few known major cities of India has the potential to uh you know to host uh such large scale events or Summits their their cities they emerging as a you know uh very good mice destinations come meet in India uh we are also promoting India as a mice destination as a so uh for uh different you know um segments I'll say uh India is targeting uh India is actually uh developing strategic uh you know uh policies to Target certain uh class of tourists so it is like for uh yeah for adventure lovers uh we we we have your adventure destinations so we will be um focusing we'll be promoting we will We would like through our campaigns through our advertisements uh we are targeting Adventure tourism also Adventure tourists who want to experience India as an adventure destination for mice so uh yes so it is like that for every segment for medical tourists India is uh becoming a yeah hub for medical tourists considering our uh yeah uh the potential we have and then the services we provide so we have uh every like if we have something for each segment the only thing is we need uh to strategically you know plan and Target those tourists so that way India is marging I say interesting and it's good that you mentioned the G20 I was also involved in that process and in fact uh for those of you who haven't been following that so India tried to make sure that all those meetings conferences that they were basically spread out all over the country not just all happening in Delhi and and a few other cities and one of the I got to go to say that again what was that more than 60 Des what was that wasn't aware that yeah but I I got to go to I got to go to my sore as part of my think 20 process beautiful place I can very much recommend that by the way so that was also a practical example where I could experience that um but it's interesting and I guess it's also a challenge sometimes to overcome conceptu you know Concepts that people have perceptions of a country what it is and what it isn't if you're trying to promote some else good we've talked about tourism we talked about growth so signals seem to be gearing towards growth and that's where at least the sustainability comes in because of course if we want to grow we have to ensure that we do it in a sustainable way and I would like now to look a little bit at the uh results of the question that we post to our audience and um to remind you the question was um what are the biggest challenges in implementing sustainability and tourism and here's what our participants wrote uh the first one is actually a question we'll address that how is India implementing sustainability we'll address that in a moment um okay so we have a few things that we might want to talk about um Punam let me get get to you so um air travel Aviation was also men mentioned um there is a big boom in infrastructure construction right now going on in India not just in the aviation business but also I don't have the exact number maybe you have it but there's a lot of airports that are either being constructed or have already been um finished in the recent Times India is now I believe the country with the the biggest number of aircraft on order in world history so there is a lot of new flights that will be added and of course that comes with a burden on sustainability we all know that the carbon footprint in especially in nir travel is quite large so what is um India's strategy for making sure that this growth that the country expects in terms of Tourism also needs maybe is um realized in a sustainable fashion you know it's a really really interesting uh thing to talk about today everybody is talking about sustainability without actually realizing that what exactly does it mean you know ILO has uh defined it as three pillars social justice they're talking about Economic Development and environment integration now when you talk about our airports uh you know you rightly said that we are coming up with lot of them uh we have a target of 178 airports to come up in next next decade and we already on the way and uh we we are actually every 3 months you'll hear about a new airport which is coming up but the government is also looking at creating a sustainable environment you know I've been working very closely with the Rajasthan government and uh they're going to have approximately 20 plus airports in the near future in just the state of Rajasthan they want to develop it like a sustainable tourism uh destination so what they're saying is that let's not just make them a business Hub let's also make it sustainable by getting more and more travel and tourism involved with these smaller airports so they want to develop these airports as tourist destinations with tying up with various uh you know it's like private public partnership where they want to have uh you know uh entertainment hubs which can be created near these airports uh totally funded by these private Partners where the government will be giving some incentives to them to make it more of uh you know sustainable growth where they're talking about getting the community involved in this they're asking about developing livelihood options for these communities because if you're talking about these airports naturally you're talking about developing it like trading hubs creating ethnic parks where the communities can come and display their produce uh creating Manufacturing envir for them which is again public partnership with the private holders creating entertainment Parks so there again we are talking about livelihood we're talking about Community participation we're talking about Skilling and training these people so it becomes more of a sustainable environment uh in these locations we work very closely with uh you know the government is working very closely with responsible tourism uh Society of India which Works majorly on sustainable tourism how we can make more of uh you know EOS City uh Eco environment or eco-friendly environment where we can have plastic free environments we we create lot of uh you know chos and those kind of things so that we ensure that not only the communities who are working in the tourism sector but even The Travelers who are coming to these destinations are also aware that let's make it a green uh place because it's not only for us it's for the future Generations just think about you know the kind of garbage we collect when we go to a tourist destination we eat we spread things and you know how uh you know uh all the families when they get together they forget about all these kind of things so we trying to create all these kind of things government is actively working on it there is SWAT Bharat Mission then there is how it is integrated with the tourism making it sustainable making it more uh friendly towards the Travelers and tourists who come to India or the Indians who are going abroad so that's how we try to build up a sustainable environment uh develop India more as a tourist safe place where as AAR rightly said that uh you know the girl uh especially when we look at the European Travelers who come to India are usually the youth and then there are a lot of girls who come and enjoy so we are trying to develop these secure and safe places for these women even in the smaller towns which we are developing like there is uh another thing which we are working on which is uh called the Buddha circuit or the Rama circuit I'm sure you recently saw how aodha which is a very small city in India has been developed as a global tourist destination not only for uh you know Travelers and tourists but also for religious purposes so we working on that lot of sustainable initiatives are being taken by the government and a lot of funding is coming from the bilateral agencies also to ensure that it becomes a place to visit uh for any and everybody in India that's an excellent uh segue to the first question that we have from our audience and I'll show it to you here and the question is is it the role of businesses such as Airlines or is it the role of government to promote sustainable tourism asaria what's your take on that uh it's a uh it's a combined effort I'll say uh no no one entity can you know uh because sustainability is a approach it's not a form of Tourism or it's not a one take shot uh both the uh businesses and the governments and and the tourists also they all need to work together very consciously uh very you know uh ambitiously then only we can uh uh go ahead with the concept of sustainability in tourism so it's not a uh any single entities work that's my take and I really believe that sustainability is something which minimizes the negative impact and maximize the positive impact now this has to be a Comm participation so like I said before also that it's public private participation so we cannot expect the government the government can start it but the community has the responsibility to take it forward so that's why we call it sustainable because sustainable is something which ultimately becomes a part of the social uh Society or Community they have to take it forward we set up systems we set up processes but if they don't maintain it then it doesn't say that the government didn't try doing something so it's as Asar rightly said that it has to be both ways it cannot be just the government or just the community let me just show our slider screen uh once again for those who have joined recently if you go to one of those links or snap a photo of the QR code that will take you to our slido page where you can ask questions to our panelists and I very much encourage you to do so now asaria let me turn to what I introduced as your passion which is the oceans and Maritime tourism now India has a very long coastline obviously so a lot of um potential for maritime or seab based tourism that being said I think at least looking at it from uh from the European perspective it's not the first country that people would probably think of when it comes to say a Beach vacation yes we know people know about Goa and the Beautiful Beach is there but I think generally India is more known for other things so first question what does what has India to offer when it comes to Maritime tourism and uh how are you trying to promote that particular aspect of of India yes uh so I'll start with the that long coastline part yes India has very good around 7,500 kilometers of Coastline when it it comes and uh uh uh when it comes to Maritime tourism uh it is a untapped potential uh I would say which India has not yet uh you know uh utilized we are uh diverting our uh you know initiatives and moves towards it very recently uh government of India has drafted a blue economy draft policy which mentions Maritime tourism as a major growth factor m as a strategic pillar in the policy so uh uh yeah uh in comparison to you know the developed and matured European destinations Europe has done really great when it comes to cruise tourism uh so uh while when I I I started my research so this was one of the uh factor which uh uh you know which I strongly believe that when it comes to Regional tie ups Partnerships so Cruise tourism is one such SE segment where India can you know learn so much and can partner with European destinations which are very well developed very well uh you know known um when it comes to Maritime tourism uh see this Maritime Vision has uh uh like uh it has recently shifted to you know the Indian Ocean region uh the I has long being perceived as a uh you know ocean of the South so uh because of the recent uh because of the 21st century geopolitical uh you know the parameters I say and then how international relations have shaped up World's major powers are now interested in uh indopacific as it is now not called as Asia Pacific so major powers are interested in indopacific now and this this has uh made India realize its uh uh you know geographical advantage uh because we li we we are located at a very crucial uh you know Maritime choke point when it comes to India major of the World's Trade passes through Yeah you mentioned the kind of more mature mature tourist destinations in Europe maybe also in Asia places such as Thailand for example who have uh been very active in attracting International tourism um also Coastal or beach related tourism for a long time are you also looking at some of the mistakes that have been made there and what are you trying or what is India trying to do to avoid those mistakes especially when it comes to sustainability you know Mass tourism all those issues what are you trying to make do differently uh India uh the first uh a very recent concept when it comes to you know measuring the when we plan a destination and when it comes to Merit time destinations it becomes even more crucial Maritime spatial planning is one such uh aspect which government of India is looking into and uh like for example I'll say LX we want to develop LX as a major destination as a very good uh you know uh adventure and Maritime uh tourism destination but we are not doing it at the cost of uh the you know uh the what are the limitations that small island has so we there's limited amount of you know the land area which we have there's a limited amount of water what we have in the islands so India is trying to develop the destinations even the that goes with the coastal part also we are trying to De the destination but not at the cost of you know environmental degradation or not we are involving communities the coastal communities uh uh with the sagur initiative with the you know the co we are trying to train the local communities we are trying to uh it's not only about that uh you know making the destinations uh accessible to all without considering the you know carrying capacity of the destination so that is very well taken careed of that's why I'll say it's taking time also because we are developing very thoughtful and responsible Maritime destinations so we have just started but yes sustainability is at the Forefront of all the government's agenda and initiatives and we are involving communities also in those uh prospects linked to that we have another question from our viewers and that question is the following what kind of Tourism will improve economic growth the best Punam what's what's your take is there one kind of Tourism that is best you know um looking at the way we are moving forward uh sustainable tourism is the only solution and that's the reason uh you know our pradan monry our prime minister has been trying to promote uh tourism in locations which are not on the map right now I work very closely with the state of sikim and sikim uh most of the people really do not know although it is much more beautiful than Switzerland but then because we not promoting it the reason Reon we are not promoting it is there is no Community participation so when we say sustainability it means that there has to be Community participation once there is community participation that means we are encouraging livelihood options for them so what we as project management unit try and work with the states is that the first thing we do is to develop the communities do skill development and capacity building for them so that they know how to uh you know you know be closer and know how to attend to a tourist or a traveler who's come to their destination it could be the language it could be their soft skills it could be their uh you know food which needs to be given hygiene that's one of the most basic thing and basic amenities so what we are trying to do is that we trying to develop these smaller locations as tourist destinations with getting the community involved in it so it could be Eco tourism or we now call it the green t tourism or Adventure tourism or trekking that is one of the major things why we see lot of Europeans come to India because for them the Himalayas are one of the major reason to do trekking now if we do trekking and we take good care of The Travelers who are coming to do trekking I think it we we've solved because number one you're giving uh livelihood to the guides you're giving livelihood to the community who serving those people and of course sustainability is all along there we are earning good money and that's the only way that it can actually uh lead to uh economic development of pan India not just the locations which I've seen on the map as tourist destinations it's high time we started looking at these places which are not on the map like she ashar rightly said that L is another place where not many people know or Andaman Islands are another one which has has better beaches than Maldives or marishes they've got all white beaches we not promoting them because there is no Community participation we need to do that and I think that will lead to economic uh development in a very very big way we've talked about tourism as a an engine for economic growth obviously for improving people's livelihood we've also talked about sustainability how to achieve that with as little sustainability impact as possible but there's also this aspect of of cultural Exchange in the sense that you know when you travel you get to know other people other cultures you increase the interaction between peoples how can we develop or or structure tourism that it also achieves those goals so that people that are visiting another country whether these be Indians coming to Germany or Germany Germans coming to India that they not just experience the the natural beauty the hospitality but they also get to contribute something to cultural exchange asaria is there a way to do that yes uh I I'll take it back uh to the history how tago Center is uh promoting Indian culture art and Heritage in Germany uh starting from 1994 uh when it comes to you know uh uh when a foreign tourist visits India uh if if he or she is only you know uh here for a specific uh purpose or uh specific uh you know like for example if uh someone is here for medical treatment so uh if someone is here for adventure so those will only be I believe uh you know the um the points where uh the foreign tourist will not experience otherwise uh India is known as land of festivals we have a festivals showcase we are showcasing our you know cultural and Regional diversity all along the year so now many of our even you know tour packages are designed based on um the local you know festivals considering the festivals so uh many of the tourists are actually when they are visiting they getting the local Flavors of India they are getting you know uh they're getting to know very closely how navaratri is celebrated for example how uh if they are visiting during you know uh the the uh like early what has recently happened is there's runoff cut Festival in Gujarat I have another question yeah major of the there's desert Festival in Rajasthan so major of the uh you know itineries are now yes sorry I I have another question from the audience that I want to so that's show to you um and that is actually it's a beautiful one because it's about Mutual learning and that's always something that we try to do in our formats is that we always see now what can we learn from each other what can Germany learn from India and vice versa so this question goes exactly into that direction what initiatives can Germany and India learn from each other to promote sustainability in tourism whether it's domestic or internationally Asar do you want to start and then I'll give Punam the chance to add to that yeah yeah uh uh when it comes to India Germany you know uh first I would like to pinpoint some of the uh some of the areas where we are actually we are lagging behind arrivals uh India has recorded yeah for the I have data for the year 2022 so Germany was ranking eighth uh in terms of foreign tourist arrival that was accounting for uh almost yeah 2.01 percentage of the of the total foreign tourist arrivals with which India accounted so that shows a very less number yeah uh postco the number is uh you know uh the major contributors where us and Bangladesh uh this trend uh showcas is that yeah there's lot more uh tourism that India can you know generate uh from Germany Germany yes uh and and when it comes to uh Indian people visiting Germany the major uh portion constitutes of the student exchanges uh students uh travel to Germany for you know studies and then the businessman's uh nurses Traders technocrats are the major people who travel uh what Germany could learn from uh India is uh yeah uh India uh is uh you know uh very uh is a developing destination when it comes to even tourism also the as I said European destinations are established and matured destinations India can learn uh yeah in terms of Maritime tourism in terms of cruise in terms of Heritage and uh you know culture Germany has almost 52 UNESCO world heritage sites so uh that ways India and Germany can uh you know Foster a relationship on even though they are doing good on economic and strategic Partnerships Germany is one of the largest trading partner for India uh India needs to develop a targeted strategy to attract German tourist I would say because of the Long Haul flight destinations and then the Visa uh restrictions uh yeah not many and then a very uh very uh prominent uh you know point is that uh World outside India does not have a clear understanding of what India is actually so that goes with the Germans also they really they they consider India as a very you know far away and complicated destination which actually India is not so in in in you know in this way uh India needs to uh you know um make it clear to the and that that change has already started I believe so it looks promising and I believe near future yes yes you you also will be visiting you know more Indian destinations other than the G20 participation what you say hope so that's what we yes I look forward to it um Punam anything you'd like to add in terms of learning experiences that we can make yeah you know I actually don't agree with AAR in that India has been always an attract attraction for the Europeans uh you know if we go back in the 17th century that was the first time the Germans the Portuguese uh the Spanish came to India and that was the time when the first German uh I wouldn't say Ambassador but you know people came to India and they were so fascinated by India that you know they started translating our cultural heritage books all those uh you know periodicals in German language and they took it back with them uh it's just that the Diplomatic relationship I think started with Germany uh after the world war where it became uh really comfortable for both India India as well as Germany and we've been seeing that Germany has been recognized as a global leader in sustainability so I think India as a tourist destination we are the biggest because you talk about beaches you talk about mountains you talk about desert you talk about you know any kind of land we have it we are religious we have ecotourism we have medical tourism and believe you me I've seen lot of Germans who've been coming to India maybe it is more of the youth who love coming to India I mean uh I I was in jel May recently and can you imagine my guy tells me the best tourist are the Germans you know they really love the German uh tourist and travelers because they believe in keeping time they they are neat and clean they don't spread uh you know uh you know garbage around they're very happy and comfortable I think we thank you very much and thank you also for pointing out that you know there's indeed I think been a long-standing fascination of Germans with India going back to Scholars and just a fun fact you know that of course but maybe not all of our viewers is that the there was a famous uh scholar of Sanskrit Max Miller is his name and he was so important for German India relationship ships that the ger Institute which is a worldwide network of culture institutions run and funded by the German governments they're called G Institute all over the world after the famous German writer except in India where they are called Max mulab bavan so that I think also tells you something about the the longstanding history of relationship between India and Japan and can you imagine we have 20,000 students every year learning German and maxm BN that's such a big number that shows that culture we are so I mean I still remember uh you know there was a saying by one of your leaders saying that we all come from the same mother that is he said that we are all Arians and Germans and Indians come through the same race so somehow he was trying to connect Indians and uh the Germans by saying that but I mean keeping that aside I really feel that uh you know there are a lot of things which are happening between India and Germany uh we recently signed up in 2022 a consultation which Germany rarely does it with anybody so we feel privileged to be a part of that uh we are going in a very very big way India has to learn from Germany sustainability because we are still as Ash rightly said developing nation and there are a lot of things where we lack behind uh in the you know the pillars of sustainability where Germany stands at the top but uh you know looking at the exchange programs that's happening we need to actually develop tourism in a better way because tourism is something which uh I think both Germany as well as India has really not seen it seriously uh looking at the India uh visits to Germany has been very very low something like 6 lak 33 nights it's something approximately in a year which has been captured which needs to grow the reason which I can assure show you or I can tell you from my personal experience also uh when I traveled to Europe I went to Austria Switzerland and one night in Germany I wish I knew about more places to visit which now I think there is a campaign which has been started by uh Germany national tourism board uh they they're talking about various different uh tourism uh opportunities for The Travelers and tourist to come to Germany so I wish I knew about that that could increase uh you know the stays of Indian tourist in Germany that's a good point and uh Germany obviously is a much smaller country than India but is also a diverse country and indeed there is probably more to the country than many people outside of it think or expect so it's not all Bavaria it's not all letter hosen as beautiful that part of the country is I'm actually from the north I'm from a city called Hamburg so uh next time you or anyone else uh travels to to Germany please do let me know and I'll try my very best to give you some advice maybe off the beaten tracks so that we can also increase diversity of Tourism here yeah we need a digital footprint I mean if you look at it whenever we talk about uh European tourism you know there is Switzerland Austria all those countries which are being you know really um promoted quite a lot which is not happening with Germany so we're already getting to the end of the session but I I want to end with something where I ask you about your your personal opinion and I know that's going to be hard but um can you give our viewers just one recommendation of a place in India that is maybe not so well known if you just had to choose one because we don't have time for more which place would you recommend our viewers to visit asaria what would that be maybe something along the coastlines yes yes uh it's rameswaram it's a uh small island uh town uh you know at the southern M southernmost tip of India in the state of Tamil Nadu so rameshwaram is seen as a spiritual destination as a religious uh destination but it's a life-changing destination I say rameswaram is the place very interesting yeah I'll I'll make sure to look that up after our session Puna what would you recommend yeah yeah yeah you know there is a place called spti Valley it's laul spti which is a destination I would recommend all people in fact I met uh a couple there who had come from Germany and uh uh the gentleman was from uh England and the lady was from Germany and they were cycling up to SPI Valley that's a place I think we we would really suggest that people should go there and people who are coming from Germany should look at the kind of green environment which is there beautiful valleys are there beautiful river is there and the best part is the climb to the Himalayas so I think I would suggest that because I'm sure as loves the marine life I love the mountain so you know this is something which I would uh you know Aspire and instigate people to really look at uh this py Valley which falls under uh Himachal Pradesh very interesting and uh since you made two recommendations I'll also add one from Germany if to have a you know rounded experience and I would recommend visitors from India and anywhere else actually in the world to come and visit an area called the ruag git which is in the western parts of Germany it's a traditionally industrial area and uh but it's been transformed in large parts today so you can see there a lot of um museums or historic places of the Industrial Revolution including old coal mines and stuff like that and it's a very very nice mix nowadays between those old industrial Testaments and nature that has also been um reestablished over the the past couple of decades so it's very very interesting and not usually very wellknown destination for tourism so that's what my recommendation would be for your next visit to Germany we've come to the end lovely I mean we would really love to promote Germany and India because now The Travelers and the tourists are really looking at newer and uh you know locations which are not seen by anybody and everybody so I think that's really a good recommendation I think there is great potential for tourism both ways I think that helps our economies in India and Germany it helps all of us learn be enlightened be entertained and we've highlighted a little bit how we can do that in a sustainable way so I think that was a wonderful discussion here today I would like to thank my two pist of course as always for this very spirited conversation I would also like to thank the audience for being here with us and for asking questions for answering our poll that was it for today and of course we have another session coming up next month so please make sure to join us there we're streaming live both on LinkedIn and on YouTube and you can obviously also go to our website you can see the URL here you can sign up to our mailing list and find all sorts of information about our other activities there thank you very much and have a great day thank you so much and it was really a pleasure talking to you and looking at Indo German relationship is a dream which should come true sooner thank you bye-bye thank you bye-bye great uh meeting you Asar
2024-05-03 10:55
