eTN Asia, 25-10-2006
Eyeing eco-tourists as well as Bollywood filmmakers, the administration in India’s Andaman archipelago has decided to strengthen its infrastructure by developing 50 new sites for tourists. The destination attracted 50,000 tourists in the first seven months of this year.
The development confirms Andaman’s aggressive plans. Recently, it was shared that India is to open 15 islands in the remote Andaman archipelago, developing a total of 50 new sites in the northern cluster of islands, 1,200 kilometers off mainland India.
“These sites have been selected so that environmentally-sensitive hotels and beach resorts can be set up under our tourism plan,” Andaman’s Tourism chief Dharam Pal had said. As per the information available, only 36 of the more than 500 islands in the archipelago, closer to Indonesia than India, are inhabited.
The decision will not mean opening new islands.
Tourism Secretary Dharam Pal told the BBC: “These sites have been selected so that environmentally-sensitive hotels and beach resorts can be set up under our tourism plan. In the first phase, tenders will be invited for a few of these sites. Then depending on the response, the other sites will be opened to domestic and perhaps even overseas bidders.” He said the virgin sites would be leased through auctions to private investors, once the federal government approved them.
