Minister of State, Chairman for Prime Minister Task Force on Gandhara Tourism, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani on Wednesday called for promoting reli-gious tourism in Swat and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to promote inter-faith harmony and generate revenue.
During his two-day visit to Buddhist Archaeological sites, located in Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunk-hwa along with the Ambassador and diplomat of Germany and Nepal, he said that the people of Swat were very hospitable and wanted promotion of tour-ism and development in the area. He said that there were abundant Buddhist heritage sites in Swat and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and if preserved and developed properly these could attract foreign tourists and help generate huge revenue.
He said that these sites of Buddha in Swat and other areas of KP were believed as holy places by devo-tees of Buddha religion and they wanted to visit these places. He said that Swat is known as mini Switzerland due to its natural beauty and foreign tourists wanted to come and invest in the area, add-ing that there was a great need of improving the existing tourism policy to facilitate the foreign tour-ists.
On the occasion, Head of Communication and Cul-tural Affairs, German Embassy Dorota Berezicki, expressed her happiness and said that Swat was a peaceful place and there was no security risk for local or foreign tourists. She said the people of Swat were very hospitable and they pay great respect to their guests, adding that foreign tourists should wit-ness the mesmerizing beauty of Swat Valley, espe-cially the Buddha heritage.
Ambassador of Nepal Tapas Adhikari said that peo-ple know little about the importance of this land, adding that proper media projection and promotion of religious tourism could build a strong image of the country besides promoting tourism. He said that Swat Valley had a lot of potential for religious tour-ism and that the government of Pakistan should provide facilities to foreigners, especially devotees of the Buddha religion.
