Amaravati, Sep 27 (IANS): Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday inaugurated the World Tourism Day celebrations with a campaign to boost tourist traffic to the state in the year ahead.

Reddy launched the 'Visit Andhra Pradesh 2023' campaign to promote tourism in the state and released the brochures to mark the occasion.

"The Tourism and Hospitality Sector is a critical sector as it contributes to employment. It has gone through turbulent times in the past two years and is recovering back to historic levels. It is our responsibility to aid this and support the sector as much as possible. Hence the focus is on declaring the year as Visit Andhra Pradesh - 2023," said Tourism and Culture Department Special chief secretary Rajath Bhargav.

The chief minister unveiled the GIS web portal to guide visitors to the tourist destinations.

"The Tourism Department should play a key role in promoting tourism, travel and hospitality fields," the chief minister stated.

The chief minister also interacted with the tribal Dhimsa dancers who came from Araku.

The state has a range of tourism destinations including a long coastline, the hilly areas of Araku, historical monuments like Buddhist sites, forts and places of pilgrimage like Tirumala, which it hopes to showcase in the days ahead.

"We have been very active in holistic improvement of our tourist destinations including improving amenities, promoting infrastructure development and attracting investments. Now with the groundwork done, we are focusing a lot on promotions to increase awareness of the beautiful destinations of our State," Rajath Bhargav added.