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Lok Sabha
Tourist Charter guidelines have been amended recently permitting operation of ‘Inclusive tour Charters’ with no limitations on frequency, size of the aircraft and destinations. Indian passport holders have also been allowed to travel on inclusive tour charters. There are no restrictions on frequency of flights and size of the aircrafts in respect of outbound tour charters provided the concerned outbound tour operator also organises inbound charters with 2:1 tourist ratio between inbound & outbound operations. Presently there is no proposal to further amend the guidelines. This was stated by the Minister of State for Tourism, Smt. Renuka Chowdhury in reply to a question by S/Shri Kirti Vardhan Singh, S.D. Mandlik, Anirudh Prasad alias Sadhu Yadav, Braja Kishore Tripathy and Asaduddin Owaisi in Lok Sabha today.
She further stated that during the last 11 months of 2004, there has been an increase of 24.0% in foreign tourist arrivals as compared to the corresponding period of 2003. For the season October 2004 to May 2005, so far directorate General of Civil Aviation has permitted 975 charter flights to Goa, 21 charter flights to Trivandrum, 26 charter flights to Delhi and 44 tourist charter flights to Amritsar. As far as infrastructure is concerned, tourist charter flights are permitted to all airports subject to the availability of customs and immigration facilities.
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