Experts suggest promoting educational tourism in Visakhapatnam

Stakeholders suggest promoting Visakhapatnam as an education hub to boost tourism and attract more youth to the city.

With the NDA government in the process of rolling out a tourism development plan for Andhra Pradesh, stakeholders in the tourism sector are suggesting to the government to promote Visakhapatnam city as an education hub.

Central government institutions in the city, like Indian Institute of Management-Visakhapatnam (IIM-V) and Indian Institute of Petroleum & Energy (IIPE) offer short-term courses which attract students from across the country. Experts say that establishing more reputed institutions and offering a wide range of educational courses will help bring a large number of youth to the city, on the lines of Bengaluru.

IIPE Director Prof. Shalivahan said the institute is committed to promoting educational tourism. “We regularly conduct workshops with various government agencies. Personnel of government departments visit the city for a short duration to attend these workshops. This helps us showcase the city and promote its tourism potential,” he said.

We have plans for specific courses and programmes to attract national and international professionals to Visakhapatnam. However, our plans will gain impetus after the opening of our permanent campus by next July. We will certainly be at the forefront when it comes to promoting educational tourism, Prof. Shalivahan added.

An IIM-V faculty member said the number of young professionals visiting the city for workshops and seminars is on the rise.

“We regularly conduct training programmes and sessions for different people including UPSC candidates and professionals. Even though most are online sessions, candidates must have some offline days to visit Visakhapatnam, stay here for some time as part of the courses and programmes. Some companies sponsor their candidates’ courses, which includes recreation activities like visiting the city’s beaches and tourist spots,” he said.

Offering short-term courses in advanced domains such as IT, pharma, business management, AI and cybersecurity, and establishment of more skill development centres and training centres for UPSC exams will help boost the number of young people coming to the city, experts opined. The influx of the young crowd will galvanise the growth of hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and multiplexes, they added.