In a freewheeling conversation with Sandra Carvao, Chief of Market Intelligence and Competitiveness at UNWTO, she shares more about the Best Tourism Villages initiative of UNWTO and how it is impacting our global villages.

Travel Daily Media (TD): How has the Best Tourism Villages programme helped in facilitating rural tourism in India?

Sandra Carvao (SC): Our Best Tourism Villages initiative aims to ensure that tourism contributes to reducing regional inequalities in income and development, fighting depopulation, progressing gender equality and women’s and youth empowerment.

With UNWTO working as the knowledge partner to the Presidency to deliver the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the SDGs in India, we recently participated in the meeting at the Rann of Kutch in the first week of February. It featured a side event dedicated to rural tourism for community development and poverty alleviation, which is our main objective.

Though India has immense opportunities in rural tourism, there are major challenges to boosting the sector which includes digital and non-digital infrastructure, empowerment of local communities and skills development. This is where our BTV programme comes in. Our programme helps the villages in advancing innovation and digitalization, improving connectivity, infrastructure, access to finance and investment, innovating in product development and value chain integration, promoting sustainable practices for more efficient use of resources and a reduction of emissions and waste and enhancing education and skills. The Ministry of Tourism in India has also now launched its own ‘Best Tourism Village’ competition and this will go a long way in promoting rural tourism in the country.

TD: Considering there are Indian villages in the portfolio of the BTV programme, how has the programme benefited the rural tourism in these areas?

SC: As of now, we have two villages from India in our network. Pochampally from Telangana was selected as a BTV in our maiden edition in 2021. The village is famous across the world for its finesse in hand-woven IKAT products in both silk and cotton. As you might know, Pochampally’s Ikat unique style is under Geographical Indication protection. Specific policies here are aimed at encouraging intergenerational transmission of skills and techniques and revitalizing local arts and crafts to promote rural development. Tourism is vital to the economy of this weaver town and leads to the creation of more jobs, thus impacting the economy and lives of its villagers. There has been an increase in the number of travellers in the region and this is good news.

Khonoma from Nagaland has also been selected to join our Upgrade Programme in our second edition of BTV, which was unveiled last December. The Upgrade Programme has been envisaged for those villages that did not fully meet the criteria of the BTV but still have a great potential to become a BTV in near future. We help these villages improve and work on their weak points through workshops, virtual meetings and mentorship.

TD: At a global level, what are the new initiatives planned by the BTV programme this year. How are these villages mentored through the BTV initiative?

SC: Our initiatives for the year will include webinars to connect the villages with the international tourism industry. We will also organize sharing good practices sessions and capability building sessions for the villages in our Best Tourism Villages network.

We kickstarted the year by launching a mentorship programme in January. The programme is aimed at the Upgrade Villages to help them improve and work on their weak points on the assessment areas through mentorship. The mentorship activity will support the selected villages with customised mentoring to help the villages address their weaknesses and improve elements of the areas identified as gaps in the evaluation process. A tourism expert will be assigned to each village of the Upgrade Programme to provide assistance. With our new Fast Track scheme, villages of the Upgrade Programme will be able to resubmit their application to become a Best Tourism Village by UNWTO in a span of three years.

TD: Could you share some information about when the new BTV 2023 will be launched.

SC: UNWTO will be opening for the 2023 edition candidacies in early March.