The Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Government of India, and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) have launched the National Digital Tourism Stack (NDTS), an open digital infrastructure initiative aimed at making India’s tourism ecosystem more discoverable, trusted and digitally accessible.The initiative was launched on World Tourism Day 2026 in the presence of Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister of Tourism and Culture.The Stack is being developed to connect destinations, homestays, guides, attractions, experiences, transport services and other tourism providers with travellers through multiple digital platforms. It is designed around an ecosystem spanning more than 23,000 tourism experiences and homestays.More than 1,000 tourism experiences, including 170 ASI monuments and 29 museums, are already transacting on the ONDC Network, providing a foundation for the wider programme.The initiative is designed as open digital infrastructure rather than a standalone tourism portal or marketplace. Under the proposed “list once, reach multiple platforms” model, tourism providers will be able to publish their offerings once and become discoverable across participating applications.The Stack is also being designed as AI-first infrastructure to support emerging models of travel discovery and planning, including AI-led interfaces and personal digital agents. It will seek to address challenges around discovery, provider credibility, payments, identity-related requirements and grievance redressal.Shekhawat said the initiative would focus on ensuring that tourism growth reaches local communities, entrepreneurs, women and youth while supporting more balanced and inclusive tourism.”When we’re talking about this digital tourism stack, it’s definitely about technology first, but it’s the impact that it can create at the national level, is what we’re talking about. This is an AI native digital infrastructure for the tourism industry,” he said.Bhuvnesh Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, said AI would be at the front end of the Stack, with the vision of “One ticket, One pass” to connect different elements of a traveller’s journey.“Currently, flights, hotels, cabs, boat rides, or even an ‘aarti’ at a temple, etc., need to be booked through different websites. This fragmentation makes the process a digitally painful experience for a tourist,” he said.Karthick Prabhu, Vice President, Travel, ONDC, said the initiative would connect tourism participants through shared digital infrastructure as travel discovery increasingly moves towards AI-led interfaces and personal digital agents.The Stack forms part of ONDC’s broader approach to developing open digital infrastructure across sectors, while retail remains its core mandate and logistics, financial services, mobility, transit and travel serve as additional use cases.
