Give an account of the primary targets of Uttar Pradesh Tourism Policy (2018).

Quantitative primary targets

• The policy’s five-year frame aimed at about 15 per cent annual growth in domestic tourist arrivals and about 10 per cent annual growth in foreign arrivals.
• It targeted about ₹5,000 crore of tourism investment each year and about five lakh direct or indirect jobs a year, presenting tourism as an employment machine, not only a pilgrimage courtesy.
• A related visitor target was roughly one lakh additional tourists to national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, tying eco-tourism to the jobs claim.
• Heritage supply was targeted at converting about ten heritage buildings into heritage hotels each year, so rooms, not only brochures, would grow.

Spatial and institutional targets

• Ten circuits were named as the investment geography: Ramayana, Krishna/Braj, Buddhist, wildlife and eco-tourism, Bundelkhand, Mahabharata, Shakti Peeth, Adhyatmik, Sufi/Kabir, and Jain.
• Incentives were to apply within about 20 km of sites on those circuits, so private capital would cluster rather than scatter.
• Tourism activities were to receive industry status, with a land bank, interest subsidy, and stamp-duty and development-charge relief as the fiscal bait.
• Safety of tourists, especially women, was stated as a non-negotiable operating target, because arrival numbers fail if the destination is feared.

What the targets were trying to do

• The vision line was highest arrivals and receipts in India and a better visitor experience, using fairs, festivals, and local enterprise rather than only monument tickets.
• A fair account notes that 2018 targets were political promises as well as planning numbers; later policies and Kumbh-scale events sat on this frame without erasing it.
• Primary targets, then, were growth of domestic and foreign traffic, yearly investment and jobs, circuit-led private supply, eco and heritage room stock, and industry-grade facilitation.