The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for signing a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Tourism of India and the Ministry of Trade Industry and Tourism of Colombia for strengthening cooperation in the field of Tourism.
The main objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding are:
a) To expand bilateral cooperation in the tourism sector.
b) To exchange information and data related to tourism.
c) To encourage cooperation between tourism stakeholders including Hotels and Tour operators.
d) To establish an exchange programme for cooperation in Human Resource Development.
e) To exchange visits of Tour Operators / Media /Opinion Makers for promotion of two way tourism
f) To exchange experiences in the areas of promotion, marketing, destination development and management.
g) To participate in travel fairs /exhibitions in each other’s country.
Colombia is an emerging tourism source market for India. The Ministry of Tourism organized a Road Show in Bogota, Colombia in October 2014 which elicited good response from travel trade of both countries.
Similarly, India is a Potential source market for Colombia considering the huge outbound tourism market of India. The outbound tourist traffic from India during 2013 was 16.63 million. Considering the mutual benefits, signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in the field of tourism would enable both countries to enter into a constructive dialogue for development and promotion of tourism in each other’s country for the economic development of the two nations.
Both countries enjoy warm and cordial relations, which can be ascribed to considerable coincidence of views on global issues and close collaboration in various multilateral forums. A Memorandum of Understanding in the field of Tourism Cooperation would be one institutional mechanism to further bilateral relations between the two countries to further deepen India’s relationship in the field of tourism.