What the MoU talks about?
– Exchange of information and data related to tourism.
– Encouraging cooperation between tourism stakeholders including hotels and tour operators.
– Establishing exchange of programmes for cooperation in Human Resources Development.
– Investment in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
– Exchange of visits of tour operators/media/opinion makers for promotion of two way tourism.
– Exchange of experience in areas of promotion, marketing, destination development and management.
– Participation in travel fairs/exhibitions in each other’s country.
– Promoting safe, honourable and sustainable tourism.
Manish kumar
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 24: The move by the Union Cabinet to give its ex-post facto approval for signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Cambodia to boost tourism between the two countries, hopes are high that Orissa can benefit from it in a major way.
This hope hinges the fact that Orissa is closer to the South East Asian country and also shares some heritage linkages that date back to centuries.
Buoyed by the fact that both these South East Asian countries have linkages to Buddhism and had shared maritime relations with each other, efforts are on to cash upon this scope of developing tourism between Cambodia and Orissa.
With the Centre giving thrust to tourism linkage with Cambodia, experts believe it could help the tourism scenes in both the countries, particularly Orissa.
“There are some common elements when it comes to Cambodia and India. Both had a maritime relation earlier and ancient seats of Buddhism and Hinduism. The MoU will be a confidence boosting measure for the tourism sector. After the signing of MoU, the Centre may plan of easing out visa norms of giving some special discounts to the people for tourism prospects,” says Sarat Acharya, a noted tour operator from the city.
Sarat also remembers the Buddhist conclave earlier this year where he interacted with few delegates who came from Cambodia. Sarat says the delegates at that time told him that the dearth of publicity from Orissa government for popular tourist destinations from the state has kept the people there ignorant about the tourism treasure here.
Many from the city believe the opportunities could be best trapped if the Central government takes positive steps to promote Orissa as a potential tourism destination for Cambodians. “If we want to take the benefit of this tourism MoU, the Centre needs to provide aids to Orissa. The Centre need to promote the Buddhist sites from the state as important parts of the Buddhist circuit in the country,” said Himanshu Das, Vice President of the Travel Agents Association of Orissa.
Many from the tourism sector believe that Cambodia is an emerging tourist destination for the western world and if proper marketing is done, Orissa could be an alternative option or halt for the foreign travel enthusiasts.
“Cambodia is sought after nation for the western European countries from the perspective of attracting tourists. Proper projection of our potential tourist sites could help in attracting the Cambodians. Projecting our heritage through tourism publicity materials and pre-planned road shows could be a good option to attract tourists from the country,” says Simone Benjamine, Chairman of Indian Association of Tour Operators (Orissa chapter).
The tourism department however, had earlier attempted to lure the Cambodians through some road shows but many say the show was crafted hurriedly and could not generate much interest.
Nevertheless, the Indian Railways which has been mulling to introduce a special train from Kolkata to offer tourists a spiritual tour of key Buddhist circuit cities spread across the region is also likely to improve connectivity to these sites. Many say this can tremendously help the Indian and foreign South Asian pilgrims to visit Buddhist sites in Orissa with ease and boost tourism prospects in the state.
