NEW DELHI, SEP 27 (PTI): The Centre on Sunday launched a project to build a national digital public infrastructure for the tourism sector, which will enable users to access a wide range of products and services on an open unified platform.
The Ministry of Tourism has joined hands with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to build the ‘National Digital Tourism Stack’, with a target to bring onboard “23,000 tourism experiences and homestays” and make them “discoverable, trustable and bookable” by the end of 2028.
Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Shekhawat launched the project at a function held at the Bharat Mandapam here to mark World Tourism Day.
On the occasion, Union Tourism Secretary Bhuvnesh Kumar explained the salient points of this ambitious and first-of-its-kind initiative.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be on the front end of the project, he said, adding that the vision behind the National Digital Tourism Stack is “One ticket, One pass” to “bring all of India together in a single journey”.
“Currently, flights, hotels, cabs, boat rides, or even an ‘aarti’ at a temple, et cetera, need to be booked through different websites. This fragmentation makes the process a digitally painful experience for a tourist planning to visit places,” Kumar said.
The envisioned digital stack, to be developed by ONDC, is a step towards making it all available on a unified platform, he said.
“The project has been approved, and we will start onboarding services. The ministry would be the catalyst and lead for this project. We will work with states and Union Territories to curate and validate experiences,” the tourism secretary said.
A “steering committee” will be established, Kumar said, inviting the industry associated with tourism to be a partner in the initiative.
According to a flyer shared with the audience, the onboarding target of 23,000 experiences includes “14,000 tourism experiences” and “9,000 homestays”.
The tourism secretary said the vision is also to onboard experiences that are either not available online or available only in a limited way. The idea is that for a tourist travelling to big cities or a small town, the planning and the trip itself should be “easy, safe, and in one’s preferred language”, it said.
The digital public infrastructure seeks to allow tourists to “discover more of India”, travel with confidence, book and pay easily, and reduce paperwork, it added. According to the roadmap of the project, the preparation and development phase will be undertaken from October to December 2026, followed by a pilot phase from January to June 2027, Kumar said.
Finally, from July 2027 to December 2028, it will be scaled out, with a nationwide supply onboarding drive.
On the occasion, the ministry released the India Tourism Statistics 2026.
Besides, the “Mission for Redistribution of Tourism Demand Promotion of Lesser-known Destinations” and “Dekho Apna Desh 2.0” were also launched.
Welcoming the launch of the digital stack, Shekhawat said a tourist today looks for diverse experiences, and travellers plan their journeys using not just traditional tourism literature but also AI-based platforms.
