He emphasised the need of formulation of marketing and branding strategy for tourism sector for improving tourism industry as like other regional countries brand like India "Incredible India", Japan "Endless Discovery", Indonesia "Wonderful Indonesia" and Malaysia "Malaysia Truly Asia" which can help in highlighting the soft image and other facilities of tourism.
He underscored the need to improve the travel and tourism industry of Pakistan which has potential to enhance national income, poverty alleviation and employment generation.
While quoting the statistics, he stated that travel and tourism industry contributes just 2.7 percent in GDP of Pakistan while its contribution in Global GDP is 10 percent and in GDP of India 9.1 percent, Malaysia 15 percent, China 15.2 percent, Sri Lanka 11.1 percent, Nepal 5 percent etc..
He stated that Pakistan is a country blessed with topography, four weathers, picturesque northern areas, religious (Buddhist and Sikh/Hindu), historical sites, etc., which indicates huge potentials to increase the contribution of this sector in national economy.
He appreciated the government's efforts in terms of providing E-visa facility to 175 countries and on arrival visa to 50 countries but there is much needed to improve the travel and tourism infrastructure which is also pointed out by the World Economic Forum in its Travel and Tourism Competitive Index report issued in September 2019.
The report indicated that Pakistan is the least competitive country in South Asia to attract the international tourism due to weak infrastructure, tourist services, safety and security, health and hygienic issues etc., he added.
Pakistan should learn from a great deal of initiatives taken by Muslim countries like Malaysia, UAE, Dubai and other countries in term of social cultural and economic point of view.