On February 27, Gujarat will complete the first year of Godhra carnage and the tourism sector is yet to be improve to its fortunes.

The communal carnage has compounded the problem of the already sluggish tourism industry.

Lots of committees and policies were formulated by the government to boost tourism but besides business travellers, Gujarat still remains the last choice for the visitors from other parts of the country and abroad.

The earthquake on January 26, 2000 put a complete halt on incoming tourists for two years, still people managed to come out from their initial trauma and fear about earthquake in Gujarat.

Even as the private tour operators started gearing up for a good run in their businesses, Godhra incident and then the elections, once again, dented fortunes.

Even the pride of the state's Tourism Department, the Royal Orient Train has been put on the shelves as no foreign and domestic tourists have evinced interest in touring the state.

Feeling the need to promote tourism in Gujarat in the post-riot days, the Confederation of Indian Industry had taken an initiative to draw up an action agenda to attract domestic tourists.

In fact, domestic tourists account for 97 per cent of total tourist inflow at present, with those originating from other states accounting for 42 per cent.

The CII council also felt that that Gujarat can be better marketed as a religious or pilgrimage destination to the domestic tourists.

A committee was created under the Tourism Council of CII's Gujarat chapter, which was followed by a number of meetings attended by the experts from this field, including hoteliers.

The state government, which earlier in 1991 declared a tourism policy but could not elicit adequate response from the private sector, is now planning to sell off 10 of its prime properties to private companies.

But the lack of tourists is forcing private to act coy of taking over the properties.

Apart from pilgrimage, though the CII Council has identified wild life tourism in Panchmahal, Dahod and Gir and also village tourism in Kutch as major tourism circuits for development, the government is yet to work out a system to promote tourism in these vibrant areas.

"Out of the total 86 lakh (8.6 million) tourists arriving Gujarat, religious tourists account for 40 per cent, which includes places like Palitana, Ambaji, Dwarka, Tarnetar, etc," commented a senior state government official.

"The government has also formed Gujarat Rajya Pavitra Yatra Dham Vikas Board to develop pilgrimage tourism. We feel that a few circuits can be identified and developed through public- private participation but we are not getting any much response from the private parties which are discouraging us from taking more initiatives," he said.