PESHAWAR: On the directives of Senior Minister Muhammad Atif Khan, the sports, tourism, archaeology, culture, museums and youth affairs department is launching a new mobile App and website to introduce Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a tourism brand to the world to attract more tourists and visitors to the province.

This was told at a meeting held with department’s secretary Shahid Zaman in the chair on Wednesday. Additional secretary Babar Khan, officials of Management Information System and others attended the meeting, according to a press release. The MIS team briefed the participants on the launch of mobile App and new website.

The meeting was told that all data of tour operators, hotels, restaurants booking, tracking, tourist resorts, lakes, weather in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be uploaded on the website and mobile App to help tourists get information about these facilities at home before leaving for a particular destination.

The officials said the department had taken tangible steps to boost archaeological, adventure, religious and cultural tourism and attract more foreign and domestic tourists to the province. The participants were informed that 75 per cent of tourist destinations, archaeological and heritage sites and Buddhism ruins of the country existed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The followers of Buddhism and enthusiasts of adventure tourism could be attracted to the province with the new app and website. The capacity of registered tour operators had been built through workshops and trainings to help them better facilitate the visiting tourists in the province, the meeting was told.

During his maiden visit to the department recently, the senior minister had vowed to arrange activities at international level to apprise foreigners of the tourism potential and beautiful places in the province.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2018