Uttar Pradesh ranks first in domestic tourist arrivals among all states of India with more than 71 million, owing to its rich and varied topography, vibrant culture, festivals, monuments, ancient places of worship, and viharas. Uttar Pradesh is also home to three World Heritage Sites: the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and the nearby Fatehpur Sikri.

Millions gather at Allahabad to take part in the Magh Mela festival on the banks of the Ganges.This festival is organised on a larger scale every 12th year and is called the Kumbh Mela, where over 10 million Hindu pilgrims congregate in one of the largest gatherings of people in the world.

The historically important towns of Sarnath and Kushinagar are near to Gorakhpur and are located not far from Varanasi. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon after his enlightenment at Sarnath and died at Kushinagar; both are important pilgrimage sites for Buddhists. Also at Sarnath are the Pillars of Ashoka and the Lion Capital of Ashoka, both important archaeological artefacts with national significance. At a distance of 80 km from Varanasi, Ghazipur is famous not only for its Ghats on the Ganges but also for the tomb of Lord Cornwallis, the 18th-century Governor of East India Company ruled Bengal Presidency. The tomb is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. The state also has a bird sanctuary in Etah district called Patna Bird Sanctuary.
Lucknow, the capital of the state, has several beautiful historical monuments.

To promote tourism, the Directorate of Tourism was established in the 1972 with a Director General who is an IAS. officer. In 1974 the Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation was established to look after the commercial tourist activities.

Challenges

• Infrastructure: Various studies noticed that only 43 percent of total potential in terms of employment and FEEs of tourism sector, has been utilised, due to lack of tourism centric infrastructure.
• Domino Effect: Tourism industry is closely integrated with several other industries like hotel and accommodation, aviation, etc., any rise and fall in these sectors may create domino effect for tourism sector.
• Intra-sectoral competition: It has noticed that the cost of travel and accommodation in India is often higher than flying to a neighbouring country. A limited supply of hotels and excessive taxation in aviation means that an increasing number of Indians prefer to go abroad for their holidays.
• Outdate policy approach: Tourism policies are lagging behind South-East Asian country’s tourism policies. Indian tourism policies are still focusing on mystical charm, ancient civilization, by neglecting other potential dimensions of tourism such as; MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tourism, ecotourism, adventure tourism, film tourism, wellness tourism etc.
• Security: India faces security risks in terms of both home grown and cross border terrorism. India has been ranked 40 among 139 global economy on safety and security parameters with marginal improvement. However, there has been an increase in crimes against women tourists as per Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017.
• Socio-Economic Conditions: Widespread poverty, presence of beggars, theft and harassment generates negative perception of Indian Society amongst the foreigners, thereby disincentivizing them.

Way forward

• Medical Tourism: Policy efforts should be streamlined towards boosting Medical Tourism in the country because of some available advantages in this segment e.g. world-class medical facilities, personalized nursing care, and cost 1/4th that of developed countries.

• Streamlining the tax structure: GST related issues in tourism sector include the place of provision issue. There is need to treat foreign exchange earnings in tourism services as exports or deemed exports. Moreover, a detailed tax roadmap specially for tourism sector, on the line of many south-east Asian
countries is needed.

• Skill Development: Skill Development coupled with foreign language learning initiatives can utilize the 18 percent of demographic dividends under skill India mission.

• Synergy: Government should synergize policy and programme of various other ministries such as policies related to handicraft, textile and merchandise etc. with tourism Ministry.

• Cinema and theatre- Promotion of Indian movies across the borders also can contribute significantly in terms of tourist arrivals.

• Special Tourist Protection Force: In order to realise the tag of tourist safe country, a pan India special tourist protection force should be established on the similar lines of Delhi and Puduchchery Police initiatives.

• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Taking the ‘Clean India’ movement forward, government should promote corporate partners on pan India scale to manage the historical monuments under CSR initiatives e.g. recently Red Fort has been leased out to Dalmia group.