While working with an international organisation aimed at promoting mountaineering in the Karakoram Range in Pakistan, I have literally seen foreign mountaineers and trophy hunters waiting for Pakistani visa and so-called ‘clearance’ for months. Anyone can check it, even today. I can bet there will be many foreigners waiting for months to get the visa and ‘clearance’ for mountaineering or trophy hunting. While Pakistan government equally humiliate the new foreign visitors and the internationally known mountain climbers and trekkers, it is very generous to Arab royal families in granting permissions and visas to hunt migratory birds in Cholistan desert. We did it early this year too, and also hosted them in December 2016. Members of Qatar’s royal family arrived in the Cholistan desert in Bahawalnagar district in the first week of January this year to camp and hunt migratory birds. Qatar’s former deputy Prime Minister Muhammad bin Khalifa Al Thani was among the royal guests. Why is the Cholistan desert specially reserved for the Arabs only? Why can’t we develop some tourism attractions for the domestic and other foreign visitors? We need to revisit our visa regime and have a vibrant and dynamic national tourism policy while getting the tourism and culture out of the blindly devolved hibernating subjects. Lately, the new managing director of the resource less PTDC, Abdul Ghafoor Chaudhary has been lobbying with the prime minister for the revival of a national body to integrate tourism sector in Pakistan. It would be a significant achievement if he could succeed to develop a certain moderately feasible physical structure to represent Pakistan in the international forums. He also aspires to launch a national tourism policy — certainly an ambitious agenda while the government is having a hard time on political and other fronts. Just a few days back, the Islamabad Serena Hotel attempted to fill the void in the sector with a daylong national tourism conference, ‘Discover Pakistan’. The well-attended conference was a significant effort aimed to highlight and find solutions to the issues of the local tourism industry. Besides, it was an opportunity to explore ways for better public-private sector collaborations to improve the country’s economy through sustainable tourism. The conference provided an opportunity to all stakeholders to put forth the ideas about how the government and tourism industry stakeholders could work together to make tourism reach its full potential. The three sessions of the conference included speakers from the international organisations promoting tourism economy and culture, environment and development sector, and the provincial authorities. The CEO of the Serena Hotels, Aziz Boolani has done what should have been done by the government, the National Heritage Division or by the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination. The industry has an excellent asset base in Pakistan’s spectacular ecological, historical, and cultural offerings. It has the potential to provide far more employment for youth and economic development for communities than it does currently. The audience also heard a lot from Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, who chaired the opening session. The key suggestion was to develop a national board or an organisation to integrate the stakeholders nationally and to promote country’s tourism in partnership with the private sector internationally. Surely, it is an important recommendation to engage all stakeholders on a platform. Without the participation of the business sector in the management of national and international framework, Pakistan’s tourism would not take off. In my opinion, instead of developing a new national organisation and framework to promote tourism, why not to revamp the physical and infrastructural regime of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) by inducing private sector representatives in its management? It would not only save and revamp a national organisation, but the assets of PTDC would also be utilised for earnings. The cultural assets that are devolved to provinces under the 18th Amendment may also be attached and coupled with the PTDC assets under the new national framework, supposedly be managed by the public-private partnership. The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed