Aiming at strengthening cooperation in the tourism sector, India and Japan today signed a memorandum here to expand the scope of bilateral promotion in the sector.
The memorandum would facilitate travel and tourist visits and boost tourism partnership between the two countries, Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner Shigeto Kubo said after signing the agreement.
The document was signed between Tourism Ministry and the Japan Tourism Agency, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Kubo said both countries have a lot of potential in the field of tourism and the number of tourists visiting each other's country need to be increased.
Referring to Buddhist sites, Kubo said, "India has a lot of places related to Buddhism and the Japanese are interested in these places. There are a lot of places to visit in India for Japanese tourists and vice versa."
Japan is an important source market for Indian tourism. There were 2.20 lakh tourists from Japan who visited India during 2013.
Tourism Secretary Parvez Dewan said religious tourism in the form of Buddhist heritage sites is a great attraction for Japanese tourists to India.
"Japanese tourists have been availing visa-on-arrival facility in a major way and the highest number of visas on arrival were issued to tourists from Japan in 2013," Dewan said.
The memorandum is expected to give a fillip to bilateral cooperation in the tourism sector including exchange of data and participate in travel fairs and exhibitions in each other's country.
