Tourism sector has been accorded top priority by the Tamil Nadu Government and huge investments are going to be made to tap its potential,Tourism Minister S.Gokula Indira has said here on Wednesday.
She emphasised that tourism is part and parcel of everyone's life and this sector has got tremendous employment generation potential.
“It was Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who coined the catchy slogan ‘Enchanting Tamil Nadu' during her stint in the early 90s. She held the tourism portfolio for three years and again she is now ready with a major action plan for tapping the tourism potential to bring revenue to the State Government and also create employment opportunities for youngsters,” she said.
Ms. Gokula Indira launched the Centre for Tourism and Hotel Management in Madurai Kamaraj University through which the varsity will offer five-year integrated course called ‘Master's Programme in Tourism and Hotel Management.'
The Minister has said that the Chief Minister's Vision 2023 document has a special place for tourism and Rs.10,000-crore worth tourism development projects have been planned through Public Private Partnership in the coming years.
“Our focus will be on everything that concerns tourism — be it the beaches, temples, parks and other things. On the other side, there is spiritual tourism in which everybody is a part since going to temples with family is also part of tourism,” she said.
Stating that tourism sector holds lot of promise in creation of jobs, the Minister urged the university to concentrate on equipping the students with good communication skills with focus on speaking English language since there are plenty of jobs in hotels.
After launching the new centre, the Minister also unveiled the portrait of M.D.K. Kuthalingam, former Vice-Chancellor of MKU (1992-95) and expressed her good wishes to the present Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan who is the daughter of late Dr.Kuthalingam.
Speaking earlier, Kalyani Mathivanan, Vice-Chancellor, said that tourism and hotel management has immense opportunities for students and the Chief Minister's significant allocation of funds to tourism sector is a testimony to that.
“If India is to realise the potential in tourism and hospitality sector, we need to have technically qualified workforce and hence, the MKU will offer an integrated course — Masters Programme in Tourism and Hotel Management — of five year duration,” the Vice-Chancellor said.
The university also paid rich tributes to its former Vice-Chancellor Kuthalingam to commemorate the first remembrance day on Wednesday.
University Syndicate members P. Gunasekaran and P.T. Manoharan along with P. Chellathurai, Professor and Head of Department of Youth Welfare Studies, have recalled the services rendered by the former Vice-Chancellor during the three-year tenure and how compassionate he was towards teaching and non-teaching staff.
R.Kannan, Registrar in-charge, MKU, proposed a vote of thanks. The university also opened a multi-speciality health centre on the MKU campus here. Portraits of five other Vice-Chancellors too were put up in the varsity's Mu.Va.Hall - K. Aludiapillai (1995-98), M.Salihu (1998-2001), P.K. Ponnuswamy (2002-05), P. Maruthamuthu (2005-08) and R. Karpaga Kumaravel (2008-11).
