Mohammad Arshad Islamabad
Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) organized four consultative workshops to get input from all the concerned stakeholders.
Aftab ur Rehman Rana, Managing Director of PTDC chaired these sessions and more than 60 key stake-holders including public sector departments and agencies, private sector organizations, tourism and hospitality trade association, non-profit associations and clubs, media outlets and academia participated in these consultative workshops and shared their input and recommendations for the formulation of comprehensive tourism development plan for Is-lamabad.
Mr. Rana in the presentation about the purpose of the consultation process informed that the capital city of Islamabad is ranked as one of the most beau-tiful cities in the world.
It is also famous as the gateway tourist destination as all the foreign and domestic tourists going to the mountains areas in the north pass through this city.
He informed that the city is not only famous for its lush green landscape but it is also home to several places of tourist interest.
In order to fully utilize the rich potential of tourism available in the area of Islamabad Capital Territory there is need to develop an Integrated Tourism Development Plan for the capital city of Islamabad to ensure eco-friendly growth of tourism and support government efforts for employment generation and sustainable eco-nomic growth.
He said that the present government is committed to develop the tourism sector in all the regions of Paki-stan and work on different projects is going on to develop regional tourism development strategies and plans and the process of formulation of tourism plan for Islamabad will greatly help in the overall development of tourism in the county.
Later discussion was held on the themes of devel-opment of tourism infrastructure, protection of natu-ral environment and cultural Heritage, development of tourism products, quality assurance and stan-dardization in tourism services and facilitation, in-vestment promotion in tourism and hospitality sec-tor, marketing and Promotion, better destination management, funding mechanism and improved coordination among various department, agencies and organizations were also discussed in the work-shop.
All the participants fully participated in the discus-sion and shared their views and ideas for the devel-opment of a comprehensive tourism plan for Is-lamabad.
Based on the input received in these con-sultative sessions, the team of PTDC will prepare a draft tourism plan for Islamabad Capital City and share it with the Federal government for its approval and implementation.
