Incredible India website in Chinese soon

In an effort to scale the great wall of ignorance that divides the two neighbours, the tourism ministry is going to launch the Chinese version of Incredible India website soon. So far, the site has French, German, Italian and Spanish portals aimed at non-English speaking European countries. This will be the first portal targetting an Asian country. "The people of two countries know almost nothing about each other, despite having lived side by side for millenniums. Our priority is to gradually increase their awareness about each other," said Amitabh Kant, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism. The ministry also plans to sell Buddhism and Bollywood in order to kindle the interest of Chinese in India. "We want the to encourage the Chinese traveller to shop in India during his visit to the Buddhist sites or the mountains. Indian cinema will give them a feel of Indian milieu," Kant said.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has billed China as biggest outbound market by 2020 with 100 million Chinese travelling out every year. Presently, this is limited to 12 million outbound travellers today. "It is a big market. We cannot ignore it. We will be organising roadshows in Beijing and Shanghai soon to persuade Chinese people to travel to India," Kant said, adding the ministry was coordinating with China Eastern Airlines to work out tourism packages. As a part of bilateral effort, a high level delegation led by Liu Yandong, Vice Chairperson of National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also called on Tourism Minister Ambika Soni and stressed the need to strengthen relation between the two countries through tourism and cultural exchange. The visit came in response to Soni's visit to China late last December, where she inaugurated the 'Treasures of Ancient India', an exhibition of Indian art.

"We are very keen that the people from two countries visit each other. Renovation work in Xuan Zang Memorial Hall, which has been named after famous Chinese traveller to India, is in progress at Nalanda and it will be inaugurated very soon," Soni said. The Ministry is also collaborating with the railways and civil aviation ministry to develop infrastructure in Buddhist interest sites. "Railway stations of Gaya and Hampi are being upgraded to take more tourist load. Indian Airlines has already started flights to Gaya twice a week. Earlier, only chartered planes used to land there," she said. Seeing the progress made in the India-China Friendship Year 2006, the year 2007 has also been declared India-China Friendship Year, the minister said. The emphasis on people-to-people exchange and cultural exchange in the development of India-China relations is in keeping with the spirit of the joint declaration made during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to India last November, she said.

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