PESHAWAR: The federal government is set to transfer the properties of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the provincial government.

The information was shared with participants of a meeting here, said a statement.

The meeting was chaired by KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and attended by special assistant to the premier Zulfi Bukhari.

The officials told the meeting that the provincial government had approved Rs360 million for the human resource liabilities of the PTDC and Rs250 million for its contribution to endowment fund.

They said the Integrated Tourism Management Plan 2020 had been developed to attract local and foreign tourists to the newly-identified tourist sites across the province in the upcoming season.

The officials said a ‘tourist facilitation hub’ had been set up at the provincial level to monitor the completion of the tasks given to the departments and receive complaints from tourists, while a mobile application and web portal had been developed to provide all required information to tourists.

Mr Mahmood expressed satisfaction with the arrangements of the tourism department and called for the development of a uniform and coordinated strategy on part of both provincial and federal governments to promote tourism in line with the vision of the prime minister.

The chief minister termed the Integrated Management Tourism Plan a milestone for the promotion of tourism in the province and directed the relevant quarters to ensure the completion of the tasks given under the plan within the stipulated time.

He also ordered the launch of a comprehensive communication campaign to project the province’s tourism potential both at national and international levels.

Mr Bukhari said the federal government was working on the branding of the entire country to project it as a tourist destination internationally and that initiative was expected to be launched by the prime minister in the middle of the next month.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2020