Bhubaneswar: With a view to attracting more tourists to state, the government has decided to execute a slew of projects including development of nine tourism circuits.
The decision was taken at the meeting of Tourism Advisory Committee held under the chairmanship Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here Wednesday.
Tourism secretary Vishal Kumar Dev said that it was decided to take up nine tourism circuits and 13 destinations in different parts of the state for development under new tourism promotion activities.
The major approved projects included development of Rambha tourism cluster, Kantilo cluster, Gandhi circuit, Sun City Konark, Buddhist circuit, Daringibadi complex, Samuka Beach, Konark marine drive eco-retreat, house boat operations in different places, surfing fest at Puri and Dak Bungalow trail in Odisha.
“In the first phase, house boat operations would be started in Chilika and Bhitarkanika. The boats would be operated by private players on operation and management basis,” Dev told reporters.
The surfing festival at Puri will be organised in collaboration with Surfing Federation of India and steps will be taken to make it an annual event, he said.
In order to showcase Odisha tourism in other states, the government has organised road shows in New Delhi, Kochi, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bangalore and Hyderabad while such programmes will also be organised in Chennai, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Raipur, Surat and Jaipur.
It was also decided to organise the roads hows at Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Bali and Jakarta to attract international tourists and private sector investment in tourism sector.
Reviewing the tourism scenario in the state, the Chief Secretary directed the officials to start ‘Mo Sarkar’ initiatives in the department of Tourism and develop various destinations as per the feedback from the people and tourists.
Discussions in the meeting revealed that on an average around 1.5 crore domestic tourists and around 1 lakh from abroad are visiting Odisha every year.
