JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a meeting of the Tourism Department attended by the MD J&K Bank and other concerned officers to take appraisal of measures being taken by the Department for identifying the gaps, policy updates and scope for improvements to strengthen the homestays for overall promotion of tourism sector in J&K.
The Chief Secretary impressed upon the department to come up with a comprehensive policy for the development of Homestays across districts of the UT. He called upon them to prepare the document in the next month after having consultations with all the stakeholders.
He underscored the need for developing a new loan product by the financial institutions which would encompass every activity that could be done to promote the homestays in the region. He advised for exploring options for increasing the number of rooms that could be converted into homestays besides the quantum of finance that could be secured for the construction and upgradation of homestays.
Dulloo emphasized that the ambit of this scheme should be widened to accommodate the concerns of the people associated with this tourism practice.
The Chief Secretary also urged the Department to make provision for convergence with other schemes like PMEGP, PM Surya Ghar Yojana or other such schemes in the policy for the accrual of multiple benefits to the people at the grassroots level.
MD and CEO of J&K Bank, Amitava Chatterjee, while speaking in the meeting, agreed that there is still scope for refining this loan product to make it more inclusive and attractive for the aspiring population. He also observed that an additional attraction of a 1% rebate on the loan could be extended to the customers on prompt repayment of the credit amount.
On the occasion, Commissioner Secretary of Tourism, Yasha Mudgal, reaffirmed that the policy is in its final phase of constitution. She said that many of the concerns of the stakeholders had been addressed after consulting them at both Jammu and Srinagar.
She further said that collaboration with SIDBI, IITM, and other agencies for capacity building of the homestay owners would be carried out under the new policy. It also envisages training on social media branding, digital marketing and geo-tagging besides listing on Google Maps and travel portals like booling.com, Airbnb, NIDHI etc.
It was also given out that the policy envisions lessening the compliance burden on the people interested in taking advantage of the homestay scheme. The policy would further promote this scheme provisioning registration of secondary properties under a structured Bed and Breakfast model with many other novel benefits for the effective implementation of this homestay policy across the UT.
Later, the Chief Secretary reviewed the progress on the development of an extensive app for a better user interface, wholesome information and extension of all facilities at one stop.
He asked for making it a single-stop solution for availing different benefits and bringing various services related to both tourists and service providers under one umbrella app. He further advised to make this app more comprehensive and less confusing arranging services related to different stakeholders separately with timely updation of contents reflecting the changes on the ground.
Regarding its development through BISAG-N, Yasha Mudgal demonstrated the phases of its development and the progress achieved so far with the help of several slides. She apprised the meeting that this app would be one of the novel ways to promote J&K tourism for it would be more user-friendly and beneficial for both the tourists and tourism players as well.
MD, JKTDC, Fazlul Haseeb, while throwing light on different features of this application made out that the main objectives to be achieved through its launch would be easy content management, accessibility across all platforms, handy information and better user experience.
This web portal in addition to providing wholesome information on all the tourist destinations and availability of amenities would also inform the users about the upcoming events. It would also ask about the experiences of visitors too about their specific feedback related to different seasons, festivals, cuisines, customs and colourful events here.
The gallery would offer photos, videos and e-brochures giving the tourists a panoramic idea about the air and aura of each destination. The app would host a burger tab assisting the tourists to customize their trip as per available time and interests. The app is also going to be a boon in giving insights to tourists based upon their interests in trekking, hiking, angling, wildlife and other adventure and leisure activities. It would host accurate information about nearby shopping places, medical facilities, transportation and tourist service providers so that tourists do not have to look elsewhere to avail of different services.