Uttar Pradesh Tourism: Pressing all the right buttons

Speaking to Travel Trade Journal recently, Mukesh Meshram, Principal Secretary of Tourism and Culture, Government of Uttar Pradesh, shared some latest insights into the strides that Uttar Pradesh was lately making in developing a multifaceted, safe and tourist-friendly tourism product. The endeavour is to fill in all the missing links, and gaps and echo the sentiment of 'Athiti Devo Bhava'.

- Sonika Bohra

Do reputed platforms like ITB and ATM have the potential to give more impetus for inbound travel to India and Uttar Pradesh?

Most definitely, as Uttar Pradesh is a big centre of spiritual and religious tourism. We have Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Mathura, Vrindavan and six major Buddhist destinations like Sarnath from where Buddhism actually started after Lord Buddha attained enlightenment and delivered his first sermon. We have Kushinagar where he attained Mahaparinirvana. These two sites are very important for Buddhists worldwide. Then there are Kapilvastu and Siddharthnagar where he actually spent his childhood and youth, Shravasti where Lord Buddha spent 18 rainy seasons meditating and also Kaushambi. 18 Jain Tirthankaras were also from areas which are integral to Uttar Pradesh.

We believe that there are about 500 million Buddhists all over the world and if we target just a certain percentage of that population, our Buddhist destinations hold great potential to offer solace, peace and spirituality to these religious tourists, seeking to retrace the footsteps of Lord Buddha.

Uttar Pradesh also has the largest number of ghats, and riverbanks, where religious buildings are located because a very large stretch of the river Ganges, flows through 27 districts of the state, starting from Bijnor to Balia. We have eco-tourism sites, there are 24 bird sanctuaries. We have many other sanctuaries and wildlife reserves like Dudhwa, Katarniaghat, Sohelwa, Sohagi Barwa and the dense forest in the foothill Himalayas.