States vie for vacationers as tourism season peaks

States give industry status to hotels and hospitality, set regulation for homestays

- AKSHARA SRIVASTAVA & GULVEEN AULAKH

Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana are competing for domestic and international tourists amid a surge in travel and tourism across the country and overseas.

Some of these states and Union Territories (UTs) are pegging their tribal festivals, farm, wine, adventure, and wellness tourism, stunning landscapes along with the religious and spiritual tourism circuits to attract tourists, while they confer industry status to the hospitality sector and provide incentives.

Arunachal Pradesh, the land of dawn-lit mountains, recently unveiled a five-year tourism policy through which it aims to achieve a two-fold increase in domestic tourist arrivals and a 10-fold increase in foreign tourist arrivals. It had over 1 million domestic tourist arrivals in 2023.

"Arunachal has a 360-degree tourism opportunity from spiritual, wellness, heritage to biodiversity. Homestays are a revolution and become a window to the most stunning landscapes of the land, which are situated in the remotest locations," Pasang Dorjee Sona, minister for tourism, Arunachal Pradesh, told Business Standard.

"We have one five-star hotel in Tawang and smaller chains like Cygnett are also coming in now. We are also in talks with boutique hotel brands like Postcard Hotels to build in the state," he said, underlining the state's efforts to increase branded hotels, and its efforts to confer industry status to the hotel industry.