Bengaluru:  The State Cabinet, which met on Monday and was chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, has approved the new Tourism Policy. The State Government is eyeing an investment of Rs. 1,500 crore in Tourism sector in the coming years.

Briefing the media after the Cabinet meeting, Minister of Tourism and Law H.K. Patil said that the Government is focusing on achieving a target of attracting 20 lakh foreign tourists annually to be among the top 5 tourism States in the country. “In addition, we have also set ourselves a target of 48 crore local tourists to become one of the top 3 States in the country,” added the Minister.

Stating that the Cabinet has cleared the new Tourism Policy 2024-29 after detailed deliberations, the Minister said that the Cabinet has also given its nod to release subsidies and grants under the new policy.

“Karnataka’s new Tourism Policy is formulated to make tourism sector in the State a priority sector with sustained development and empowerment. The policy has been formulated keeping in view of all sections of the society including the poor, middle class, upper middle class and the elite category. The new policy is comprehensive and includes various branches of tourism like educational tours of school and college students, agricultural tour, health tourism, spiritual and pilgrimage tourism, adventure tourism, heritage and entertainment tourism and others,” said Patil.

He concluded by saying that the new policy will help in attracting investments in tourism, creating employment and to raise the economic standards of the people of the State and also to increase the contribution of tourism sector to the State’s GDP.