Kottayam (Kerala), Feb 26 (PTI) The Kerala government on Sunday said it would make changes to its Responsible Tourism (RT) policy to further strengthen the state's travel industry and make its activities more people-centric.

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Kerala Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas, after inaugurating the four-day Global RT Summit at Kumarakom near here, said there should be emphasis on making tourism activities eco-friendly.

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He said the government's RT Mission will spread its activities by introducing responsible tourism practices in all tourist destinations across the state.

"We must showcase our Responsible, Experiential, Rural and Sustainable Tourism initiatives so as to increase tourist inflow," he said at the event according to a government release.

The minister also said the summit will also work towards the goal of empowering women in the state.

The conclave will discuss RT models of international repute and work towards a global network in sustainable tourism, he said in his video address at the opening ceremony.

Kerala Tourism also exchanged a memorandum of understanding with the UN Women's Office in India to adopt women-friendly measures that will strengthen sustainable tourism, the release said.

Riyas further said that the government has decided to convert RT Mission as a Society for the smooth functioning of the initiative.

The government has also decided to revise its 2008 declaration on RT and scale up its environment-friendly activities across the state, he added.

"We want to ensure resilient tourism activities across the state and create a network of practitioners and promoters of Global RT. We need to gain more knowledge from RT practices across the globe, for which we are considering the formation of a global-level association," he said according to the release.

"Strengthening RT is going to bring a drastic change in our tourism industry and raise the state's tourism to a new height," he added.

Giving details of how the RT Mission was progressing, Riyas said it was aiming to establish 100 per cent structured Responsible Tourism destinations through endeavours such as STREET (Sustainable, Tangible Responsible Experiential Ethnic Tourism) and PEPPER (People's participation for Participatory Planning and Empowerment through Responsible Tourism) that have won global recognition.

Cooperation Minister V Vasavan, who also spoke at the event, highlighted the need for coordinated efforts to ensure the success of RT, the release said.

"Initially, in 2007, when RT was mooted, the idea received poor response. There was even resistance from certain quarters.

"Slowly we won the confidence of the people and RT won public acceptance. We still have a long way to go," he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)