Islamabad: Pakistan has proposed a single-tourist visa for member states of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) programme for promotion of interlinked tourist destinations, a news source reported.
Adviser to the Prime Minister (PM) on Institutional and Governance Reforms Dr Ishrat Hussain recently expressed his views on the matter at the CAREC Forum on Sustainable Tourism Development.
He said that global tourism trends were undergoing rapid change – from single-country tourism to multi-country tourism. This ever-changing scenario called for a unified market strategy and cost-effective approaches, he added.
He stated that the areas which shared religious and mountainous linkages should be developed and promoted collectively. He stressed the need for a single-visa tourist policy in a bid to facilitate the tourism industry.
The adviser informed the participants that the government accorded top priority to the tourism sector. He further said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had recently constituted a Tourism Coordination Board, comprised of officials of the federal government and four provincial governments, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), as well as Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).
