Conference on Pakistan tourism call for establishing national tourism authority

RAWALPINDI: The participants of a roundtable Pakistan Tourism Conference has passed a unanimous resolution for the establishment of an independent ‘Pakistan National Tourism Authority’ which can adopt measures and decisions for the promotion of tourism.

They said that public-private partnership should be promoted to achieve the targets for this sector which has a lot of potential.

The conference was chaired by PTDC Managing Director Chaudhary Abdul Ghafoor Khan and attended by representatives of UNWTO Harry Hwang and George Drakopoulos, Aftab ur Rehman Rana, Sustainable Tourism Foundation Pakistan President Malik Akbar Ali, PTDC Audit Section General Manager Asif Javed, College of Tourism and Hotel Management (COTHIM) Executive Director Sajjad Hussain Shah, PATO President Izhar Ahmed, Tourism Coordinator Rana Afzal Kamran, American School & College Managing Director Tahir Imran, Pakistan Panoramic CEO Saif ud din, Across Pakistan Tours Managing Director Karrar Haidri, Saltoro Summits Managing Director Hamid Subhani, PHA Vice Chairman Amjad Ayub and Inner Asia PATO CEO/ex-president.

The PTDC MD said that a national tourism authority should be formulated in the country which exists in every country of the world. “It is time to take bold steps in this regard,” he said.  He requested the Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to convert PTDC into an independent ‘National Tourism Authority’ which would enable PTDC to take decisions for the promotion of tourism in the country.

Chaudhary Abdul Ghafoor expressed the hope of achieving the target of forming a tourism authority in Pakistan within weeks instead of months and years.

He further underlined the need for a tourism policy and informed that he along with his team is working on it.

He also asked the participants of the conference to present their recommendations in this regard.  The participants including Harry Hwang, George Drakopoulos, Aftab ur Rehman Rana, Malik Akbar Ali besides others supported the proposal regarding the tourism authorities establishment and expressed their willingness to extend full cooperation in this regard.

George Drakopoulos said that public-private partnership is vital to promote tourism in Pakistan.  There is lack of coordination among the two sectors and stakeholders, while concerted efforts should be made to promote tourism.

“The national tourism authority should be a joint platform of public and private sectors besides, having a full representation of all the provinces of Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and AJK,” he stated.

Aftab-ur-Rehman while giving recommendations said that the main role of the tourism authority should be to facilitate the stakeholders and investors as per international standards of quality services in the concerned sector.

Other speakers suggested of Pakistani marketing products being exported to the world which would help enhance the number of foreign tourists.

“Pakistan can introduce a lot of products internationally and by marketing these products, tourism would flourish and generate revenue for the country,” they said.