‘UT tourism industry setting example for whole country’

Chandigarh, March 29 To promote Responsible Tourism in the city, the UT Tourism Department, in association with the EonEcon Foundation, held a conference today to raise awareness about the social, economic and environment responsibilities of the tourism industry, its cost-effectiveness and the benefits of eco-tourism. Chandigarh Tourism is adopting ‘Responsible Tourism’ in collaboration with EonEcon Foundation. Speakers from the hotel industry were called in to put in their views.

The conference kicked off with a presentation on the current environmental situation worldwide by Harveen Kaur, project manager of EonEcon Foundation.

She spoke on how tourism impacts the social, economic and environmental aspects of a particular region. Pawan Khaitan, President, EonEcon Foundation and managing director of ABC Paper gave a presentation on ‘The importance of environment initiatives’.

He cautioned that climatic change is more of a threat compared to global terrorism, and working together towards minimizing negative economic, environmental and social impacts is very important.

Vivek Atray, Director of Tourism, UT, highlighted on how Chandigarh is taking the concept of Responsible Tourism ahead. “The tourism sector is a huge and visible industry, and whatever we do is observed closely. Even WTO has formally taken up the concept of Responsible Tourism. Chandigarh is setting an example for rest of the country,” he said.

Prof Anil Laul, an architect from Delhi gave his inputs on ‘Sustainability and Architecture’, which threw light on how the architecture of a building can also play an important role. Manmohan Singh, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Chandigarh and the Tourism Promotion Society of Chandigarh, spoke on the importance of collaborative efforts of the tourism industry towards taking ahead Responsible Tourism.