Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Arunachal, just days ahead of the 60th anniversary of the end of the India-China war of 1962, to inaugurate the state's first greenfield airport, Donyi Polo Airport, in Itanagar.
The airport, built as part of a massive infrastructure development push in the Northeast by the center, is estimated to service some 20 lakh people in the region and help boost tourism in the state.
Over the last decade, China has used tourism to consolidate its border with India in Tibet. The growth in tourism, enabled by the massive development of infrastructure in border areas, has turned border villages into new tourist hotspots and herders into hoteliers.
Earnings from tourism — as high as 100,000 yuan ($15,000) in a season in some cases — act as an incentive for people to move to border areas from the interiors of Tibet, increasing the population along the frontier.
For instance, Nyingchi, a city in Tibet located around 40 km from the frontier with Arunahcal, has turned into a tourist hub.
Tourist arrivals in the city have gone up sharply in the last few years with the construction of an airport in Mainling.
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