Andhra Pradesh tourism loses Rs 60 crores during pandemic

Andhra Pradesh is preparing to develop its tourism sector after suffering heavy losses over the past six months.

As part of this, tourism minister Avanthi Srinivas conducted an industry review recently and decided to set up five-star and seven-star hotels across seven tourist destinations in the state by forging public-private partnerships.

He said the tourism department had lost a total of Rs 60 crores at the rate of Rs 10 crores per month due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this year, the tourism department had completed the construction of nine tourism control rooms in various districts across the state for better coordination.

As many as 50 tourists died in a boat capsize in river Godavari in East Godavari district during September 2019. With this, the boating operations to Papi Hills were stopped as per the directions of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The chief minister said until all precautionary measures were taken, including the construction of control rooms to monitor tourist boats, the operations will have to wait.