Ministry of Tourism to bring out common guidelines for states

While many countries, which have high stakes in international tourism, are designing new safety and hygiene certification for their tourism products and services to reassure travellers on the preparedness in the light of Covid-19 pandemic.

In India, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, will only be issuing a set of guidelines to States to make sure the destinations and tourism products and services are safe for travellers.

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, feels that a uniform certification is going to be impractical in the Indian context considering the various nature of the country.

Meenakshi Sharma, Director General – Tourism, Government of India said that an internal group is working on the broad guidelines and will be ready in the next two to three weeks’ time.

“The group constituted for the aim will discuss with the stakeholders and experts in the area before formulating the broad guidelines/checklist,” she said.

Once formulated, these guidelines are going to be sent to the states. “In India, it’s impossible to possess a central certification. So we’ll be giving broad guidelines. it’s for the states to regulate it to their situation and enforce it,” she said.

Sharma informed that so much of work in this direction has been done by different agencies like ICMR, DGCA, etc. and also by individual hotel companies and groups, therefore the overall focus of the department would be on the implementation of the SOPs at the bottom level with minimum inconvenience to the travellers, the DG informed.

Countries in SE Asia like Singapore, Thailand, which are more tourist-centric in their approach, have begun with specific quality marks and certifications to come up with confidence in their travel and tourism products and services in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.

Singapore has implemented ‘SG Clean’ quality mark, while Thailand has announced a dedicated Amazing Thailand Safety & Health Administration’ (SHA) certification.