Investor Presentaiton
FINANCING SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
Message From
Mr. Amer Sultan Tareen
Secretary Sports, Tourism, Archaeology,
Museum, Culture & Youth Affairs Department
Pakistan is increasingly being seen as an
international tourist destination, with its scenic
mountains and rivers, beaches, and green hills.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is particularly gifted in
this area, being the home of the some of the
most beautiful tourist areas. Not only is it
blessed with natural beauty, but is also has
been an important historical region, dating
back centuries, and has a vibrant culture that
attracts people from all over the globe.
Owing to all these factors, KP has always
been one of the favourite domestic tourist
destinations. It has recently received a greater
number of tourists than ever before. The
government has also taken up tourism as one
its chief priorities and has been focusing on
further increasing the number of tourists and
tourist destinations within the province.
Given this goal, it is also important for us to
simultaneously work on improving the tourists'
experience in our province, ensuring they have
all facilities available, while also protecting the
interests of locals of the tourist areas.
For this, we need to promote sustainable
tourism in KP and Pakistan. This policy note by
the FCDO-funded Sustainable Energy &
Economic Development (SEED) programme
and the Consortium for Development Policy
Research (CDPR) is a great and timely initiative
in this regard, as it focuses on a new approach
to tourism financing that has proved to work
well in many other countries. It calls for
apportioning the revenues from existing taxes
in tourist areas as tourism cess, which will the
be earmarked for sustainable tourism develop-
ment within these areas only. The challenges of
this approach have also been discussed at
length, and this is a discussion that must be
taken up at all public and private platforms
invested in this sector.
The note makes other important recom-
mendations as well, including the streamlining
of the institutional setup of the tourism sector
and introducing mechanism to institutionalise
the voices of private sector stakeholders and
the community. These are all important steps in
the right direction, and we hope to work
together with all stakeholders in the future to
promote sustainable tourism in KP.
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