Minister for inter-provincial coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza Friday said that promotion of tourism is crucial for economic and social development of the country. Addressing a news conference here, the minister said that Pakistan has wide tourism potential that needs to be exploited for benefit of the people. She said that a special task force on tourism is reviewing all existing opportunities as well as ways to remove impediments in this regard. She said that a meeting of the task force was held on Friday and it was attended by representatives of all four provinces as well as Gilgit-Baltistan.

She said the meeting recommended identifying 20 sites of the country with high tourism potential in the first phase. Fehmida said that foreign investment is also needed to develop the tourist resorts and allied industry.

She said that her ministry will activate social media to market Pakistan's tourist sites and for this purpose a mobile app will also be launched to give details of various tourist attractions in the country.

The minister said that the provinces have been asked to contribute in developing a slogan for tourism promotion in the country. She said that the proposals made by provinces will be submitted to the Prime Minister for final approval.

Speaking on the occasion, minister for tourism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Atif Khan said that the meeting decided that there should be a single platform to work on issues relating to tourism.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019