News: Pakistan to focus on environment for tourism promotion
Name of NewsPaper: The News
Date of Publication: 04, March, 2008
URL:

Pakistan should focus on sustainable environment to enhance travel and tourism competitiveness, the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008 (TICR) said.

The WEF's TICR 2008 in its reports has highlighted the competitive advantages and disadvantages in Pakistan's tourism and reinforced the importance of environmental sustainability.

The report launched on Monday provides a cross-country analysis of the drivers of competitiveness in travel and tourism, providing useful comparative information for making business decisions and additional value to governments wishing to improve their travel and tourism environments.

Despite showing certain competitive disadvantages in the travel and tourism industry, Pakistan ranked well on the air (40) and ground transport infrastructure (39). The price competitiveness in the industry maintains a very vi1able position based on the low fuel price level (23), purchasing power , parity (25) and the extent and effect of taxation (33). Pakistan will,however, like many other countries need to focus on the sustainability of its natural envirnoment.

The data for Pakistan has been prepared based on a combination of data from publicly available sources, international travel & tourism institutions and experts as well as the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, which was carried out last year by the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) in Pakistan. - APP