Shillong:
Japan has lifted travel advisories issued to its citizens visiting the Khasi and Jaintia Hills region, Meghalaya Governor Ganga Prasad said on Thursday.
“The Raj Bhavan received a communication from the Japanese Embassy on that the Government of Japan has lowered the level of travel advisory for East Khasi Hills, Ri-Bhoi, West Jaintia Hills and East Jaintia Hills districts. This will open up Meghalaya’s four districts to Japanese visitors and tourists and enhance the people-to-people contacts as well as economic exchanges between Japan and Meghalaya, Prasad said in a statement.
The decision was taken as a follow up of the requests made by the governor to the Ambassador of Japan when he met him in Shillong on May 7, the statement said.
The advisory was in place for decades owing to the law and order situation in the state.
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The Governor expressed hope that the tourism industry in the state of Meghalaya will get a fillip due to this positive development.
The beautiful hill state, located between Assam to the North and Bangladesh to its South, had received over 10 lakh tourists last year, only next to Sikkim which received over 14 lakh tourists during the same period.
According to statistics provided by tourism department, of the 10.02 lakh tourists who visited in 2017, domestic visitors accounted for 9.9 lakh and the rest 12,000 plus were foreign tourists.
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