After witnessing an arrival of just 1,25,000 international tourists, Gujarat government is gearing up to focus exclusively on toursim opportunities in the state.

From roping in Amitabh Bachchan, setting up tourism institutes to identifying Special Tourism Investment Regions (STIR), the state government is exploring various avenues to popularise Gujarat as a tourist destination. The state has even set aside a marketing budget of Rs 45-50 crore to promote tourism.

"The diversity of Gujarat can itself be a 'brand' and that is what we intend to promote," said Kamlesh Patel, Chairman, Tourism, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat at the Gujarat Tourism Conclave 2010 held by the Department of Tourism, Government of Gujarat in partnership with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

With an aim to sensitise the Indian tourism industry on Gujarat tourism, the state is planning various initiatives and policies. "Gujarat is working towards declaring tourism as an industry. We have identified Special Tourism Investment Regions, which are the areas where people like to go but do not have proper places to stay. A policy is expected to be out in this regard soon. Besides, the state government plans to organise road shows across the country, meet members of trade in various cities. We will also set up large number of institutes in the next two years that help cater to the required manpower in the tourism industry," said Vipul Mittra, Secretary Tourism & Civil Aviation, Government of Gujarat.

The conclave also saw A FICCI-Yes Bank study on 'Furthering the growth of Gujarat Tourism; With special emphasis on health and wellness tourism' being released by Jaynarayan Vyas, Minister for Tourism, Health & Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat. The study reveals that while Gujarat witnessed 3,00000 international arrivals in the state last year, of which 170,000 were Non-resident Indians, only 1,25,000 international travellers visited the state for leisure as compared to 10,70,000 leisure travellers to the neighbouring Rajasthan.

In his inaugural address, Vyas said that the tourism growth in the state will overshadow the industrial and agricultural growth. Business, leisure and medical tourism will take Gujarat to the forefront. He urged the national and state tour operators to consider Ahmedabad as the 'Gateway Point' to travel to the rest of the country. On the medical tourism industry, the study revealed that medical tourism was growing in India at 30 per cent annually. For Gujarat, the main challenges are uncredited hospitals and lack of quality of accreditation, need to improve standards of hospitals beyond Ahmedabad and Vadodara, infrastructure facilities, face competition from Malaysia and Thailand. Some of the recommendations by Yes Bank to overcome these challenges were domestic and international partnership, suitable logistics and medical insurance, to name a few.

This first ever Gujarat Tourism Conclave 2010 focused on tourism opportunity, air connectivity, health and wellness tourism and lay down a Tourism Road Map for Gujarat, urged for feedback from the participants and brainstormed on pertinent policy issues with decision makers of this sector. A few suggestions from the participants were to explore adventure and archeological toursim in the state at Mithapur, Kutch and Dholavira, hiring tourism professionals and creating a single window clearance for various projects.