India, known world-wide for its cuisine, should exploit this "asset" to attract more foreign tourists and build infrastructure that travellers can look forward to, President Pranab Mukherjee said yesterday. 

"One of the most attractive assets that India can offer is our cuisine. There is no parallel to the range of local specialities that a traveller can savour as he travels through India," he said at the National Tourism Awards function in New Delhi. 

This, coupled with proper infrastructure which responds to the expectations of the most travelled visitors, could give a further push to wooing both foreign as well as domestic travellers, he said. 

India saw about 6.65 million foreign tourists arriving last year, which was a growth of 5.4 per cent in such arrivals over the previous year.

Foreign exchange earnings in this segment was also estimated to be about Rs 94,500 crores for 2012, a significant 21.8 per cent increase over the previous year, he said. 

Mukherjee said due attention to safety and quality standards of food would instill more confidence in foreign as well as domestic tourists. In this regard, he said the government will soon open an institute of excellence for culinary specialisation and research. 

He said good infrastructure is the need of the hour as a visit to a world renowned heritage site can be marred by poor approach roads or the absence of public facilities en-route or by unpleasant sights and odours. 

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