UP will have country’s first tourism mall

BY AMITA VERMA

Lucknow

June 29: Uttar Pradesh will boast of the country’s first tourist mall that will be a one-stop shop for touring nearly 21 states in the country.

The tourist mall, slated to come up in the palatial tourism department building in Gomti Nagar locality, will have extension counters of 21 state tourism corporations that will provide all possible information and booking facilities to people wanting to visit other states.

People can seek information, make on-line lodging, travel bookings and even book a tourist guide from the mall. For those wanting to travel to more than one state at a time, the mall will make transit bookings as well. The counters will provide brochures and audio-visual presentations to prospective tourists.

According to sources, among the states that have already shown interest in opening extension counters at the tourist mall here are Himanchal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh and Kashmir.

Talking to this newspaper, a senior official of the tourism department said that the tourism mall would not only be a revenue earner for the department, since all states corporations will pay a handsome rent for spaces taken to open extension counters, but will eventually be a major tourist booster for the state.

"Apart from encouraging domestic tourism, we feel that the tourism mall will also attract foreign tourists who are already accustomed to one-stop tourist shops. Uttar Pradesh had been lagging behind due to lack of facilities but now we are forging ahead of other states," said the official. Through the mall, UP tourism officials also propose to encourage religious tourism, heritage touri-sm, adventure tourism and leisure tourism.