When your state is larger than most countries, you have a unique set of challenges on your hand in managing tourism. This week on Leaders of Travel, I speak to the Director-General of Tourism in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Hello and welcome to Leaders of Travel. This is the podcast series where we meet people working at the highest levels of the travel industry to find out how the big decisions are made.
My name is Michael Turtle and I run the travel blog, Time Travel Turtle. If you’re interested, you can find all the old episodes on there or on itunes.
This week I’m going to be talking about Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, with a population of about 200 million people. If it was a country, it would be the fifth most populous in the world!
Now, that means lots of challenges for the people running the state, including in tourism. Because you’ve got to make sure there’s enough infrastructure to support the visitors, something that’s hard to do when you’re also dealing with issues like poverty and safety.
Uttar Pradesh certainly has something pretty good going for it, though. It’s home to the Taj Mahal, probably the most famous and popular site in all of India. But how do you get the tourists who are visiting it to stay around a bit longer?
Well, the Director General of Tourism, Amrit Abhijat, has come up with an idea called the Heritage Arc. It’s a tourism trail that links the Taj Mahal with the city of Lucknow and the ancient city of Varanasi – three of the gems of Uttar Pradesh.
To hear more about that and find out what it’s like to visit Uttar Pradesh, let’s chat with Amrit Abhijat.
Amrit Abhijat there – the Director General of Tourism for Uttar Pradesh, giving a pretty balanced assessment of his state.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the episode and, as always, you can let me know what you think on social media or on the blog – time travel turtle dot com.
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Next episode I’ll be chatting with one of my favourite airlines, Qantas, to hear what it’s doing to manage the experiences of its passengers.
Until then, my name is Michael Turtle from the travel blog Time Travel Turtle, and you’ve been listening to Leaders of Travel.
Very interesting to hear about the many great aspects that can be explored in Uttar Pradesh. So much hard work goes into welcoming visitors. Thanks for sharing!