Advisor to Punjab CM for Tourism and Archaeology, Asif Mahmood has said that Department of Tourist Services (DTS) has shown good performance by making a 200 percent increase in revenue generation during the last six months.
The advisor disclosed this while addressing a ceremony of the inauguration of the DTS building in the provincial capital on Tuesday. He said the government collected Rs2.5 million in the head of hotels’ registration in 2019-20 while Rs6.5 million were received as registration fee in 2020-21.
The advisor said that 78 new hotels, 124 restaurants and 190 travel agencies have been registered while 2,000 more hotels and restaurants will also be registered by the DTS. Meanwhile, the DTS has also completed a survey of non-registered hotels and restaurants and the DTS can also seal hotels, restaurants and travel agencies failing to register themselves, he added. He disclosed that notices have been issued to 498 hotels and 1465 restaurants for registration.
Asif directed the DTS to launch a user-friendly web portal as well as an increase in facilities for showing better performance and assured that staff shortage will be fulfilled.
Secretary Tourism Ahsan Bhutta said that DTS will act as a regulator of agencies associated with the tourism sector. The head of DTS Hafiz Ghazanfar Ali briefed about the future roadmap.
