In a bid to tap tourism market of Gujarat, the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation has been taking several initiatives to attract more tourists from the state of Gujarat to the temple town of Tirupati.

"This initiatives include signing of MoU with the IRTC (Indian Railways Tourism and Catering Corporation) for taking tourists of Gujarat to Tirupati from Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat cities," APTDC general manager Sumeet Singh said today. Other initiatives include special package tours to Tirupati to be operated by Spice Jet.

"More than 18 crore tourists, including 8 lakh foreigners visited the various tourist destinations in Andhra Pradesh during 2010-11 this number is likely to go up this year," Singh said.