The green, heritage, wilderness and wellness city of Mysuru is preparing to be the gateway to India. India Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said: “Tourism is central to India’s vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047, the centenary year of India’s independence. Our target is to increase tourism’s contribution to 7 percent of GDP by 2030 and 10 percent by 2047 from the current 6 percent. India, the oldest democracy with the fastest-growing economy, has spirituality, technology, traditions, transformation, culture, and creativity. Mysuru possess this unique combination along with natural beauty, royalty and a grand spectacular festival that gives it a distinctive position. Mysuru has all the qualities to become the anchor of tourism in India, just like Jaipur, Udaipur and Agra.”
He inaugurated the 5th edition of the Mysuru Travel Mart at the Jagannatha Centre for Art and Culture last weekend. Organised by Mysuru Travel Mart (MTM), the event had 100+ exhibitors showcasing their products to 350 hosted buyers from across India.
Jagannatha Centre for Art & Craft, Mysuru
Minster Shekhawat was adding to what Mr B S Prashant, President, MTM, said: “Mysuru is the potential gateway to Southern India.” MTM is a combination of Mysuru Travel Association and Mysuru Hotel Owners Association. It has 440 members in all.
Maharaja Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, Member of Parliament, Government of India, said: “Mysuru Palace is second in number of footfalls per day to any monument in India. During the annual festival of Dasara, footfalls at the Palace exceed even those of the Taj Mahal at Agra. It’s largely local tourists and those from neighbouring states. Tourists from across the country and around the world need to come to Mysuru, as it’s an anchor for many popular surrounding attractions. The city depends on its heritage and derives its identity from both tangible and intangible heritage, preserved through traditional events and even those carried on at home. We have the highest number of Geographical Indications (GI) in Mysuru and have a tremendous role to play in continuing the spiritual aspect of Mysuru.”
Chamundi Hills, Melkote, Nanjanagudu, BR Hills, NM Hills and innumerable temples are 1000+ years old and stretch back to India’s ancient spiritual history. The Ramayana route, coming through the state of Karnataka, passes through Hampi, then Mysuru, to reach Rameshwaram. Karnataka is considered among the top wildlife destinations in India. Mysuru is the base for three of the 5 national parks in Karnataka: Nagarhole, Bandipur, and Kudremukh. The royal City of Mysuru itself has many beautiful palaces, wide, tree-lined avenues, the Karanji River Nature Park, a zoo, and many museums.
India Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
Rakshan Achar, Brand & Experience Executive at Experience Mysuru, said: “Mysuru has 32 GI tags. We can give the visitors the experience of those. Be it a heritage walk, a classical Bharatanatyam dance performance, a demonstration of gold-embellished Mysuru paintings or wood inlay craft.”
Maharaja Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar
The nearest international airport to Mysuru is Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, 184 kilometres away, a 3-hour drive. Mysuru airport currently operates daily flights to Hyderabad and Chennai on smaller aircraft.
P V Ushakumari, Airport Director, Mysuru Airport, said: “Airports Authority of India has approved the master plan for an INR 2.2 bn expansion to transform Mysuru airport into an international aviation hub capable of handling wide-bodied aircraft. Extra land acquisition is almost complete. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to build a 500-meter-long underground box tunnel beneath the extended runway to overcome the critical engineering hurdle of rerouting the Mysuru-Nanjanagudu Highway (NH-766), which directly intersects the proposed extended runway. Our estimate is to have wide-bodied aircraft operate from Mysuru in two years.”
Narayanagowda C, President, Hotel Owners’ Association, Mysuru, said: “Mysuru has 2500 hotel rooms across categories.” There are wildlife resorts run by the Karnataka Government’s Jungle Lodges and Resorts in all the national parks, offering jungle safaris twice a day that provide good sightings of tigers, elephants, leopards, wild dogs, boars, bison, various deer, and many species of birds.
Written by Madhura Katti – © 2026.
Read Time: 4 minutes.
About the Author.
Madhura Katti never simply chose travel; she chose her. Trained in hotel management in Bangalore, she understood early that journeys are really about people, not places. By the nineties, she was writing on travel and food with a natural authority, later earning a Best Travel Writer award that surprised no one who had read her work.
Storytelling soon moved to film. Her documentary work with Indigenous India captured the spirit of a country in motion and won a National Award for Best Tourism Film.
After years with TTG Asia and Aviation International News, she brought her seasoned judgement to Global Travel Media, where she now guides coverage across India and South Asia steadily, perceptive, and unmistakably human.
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