Shillong, June 13: Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Friday said the tourist footfall in Sohra is increasing despite the recent attempt to attack the image of Meghalaya following the murder of tourist from Indore.
According to him, the tourist footfall is expected to touch 20 lakh after the upcoming Cherry Blossom festival to be held later this year.
“As we speak the footfall in Sohra itself is increasing. There are more and more visitors. Even when the case was still not solved, the footfall was still the same. Now with the name of Meghalaya being vindicated and cleared we are only saying more footfall and we expect that it would touch 20 lakhs by the Cherry Blossom festival,” Lyngdoh told reporters.
Asked, the tourism minister said the genesis of the government’s demand for apology spranged after a number of wild comments were made including incitement of violence against people originating from Meghalaya following the tragic incident at Sohra.
“The very next day the response was tremendous because a lot of major media houses including Times of India, Republic TV apart from private blockers have tendered their unqualified apology. So that met with our demand,” he stated.
Stating that matter has ended, Lyngdoh said, “No, we have stated very clearly that unless you apologize we will file defamation suits and we have filed FIRs as well. Now once they have taken their words back for instance the family of the deceased has also publicly apologized to the government and people of Meghalaya, the matter ends there.”
Further, the minister informed that the state already have a tourism app, which records all movement of tourists, including the cars or whatever mode of transport they used and compulsory registration of all visitors at various homestays, resorts and hotels.
“Now, the use of this app is roughly around 50% but we will now make it compulsory that all homestays, resorts, and other places of acommodation should register all visitors mandatorily,” he added.
Meanwhile, the minister said that the department has already issued a notice calling for interested youth who are fluent in Khasi, Garo, English and Hindi to join the tourist buddy scheme and within the next two months, we should be able to clear appointment of hundreds of tourist buddies.
