Orissa government will soon form a cabinet sub-committee to give a final shape to the state tourism policy. The sub-committee will interact with all stakeholders before vetting the policy, the state tourism minister, Prafulla Samal said at the workshop 'Tourism: Driving Force of State Economy', organised by HRAO in association with State Tourism on Sunday.
The minister admitted that Orissa despite it rich potential to draw all kinds of tourists has failed to market itself. The focus will be on building proper infrastructure and community participation to ensure that tourists have comfortable stay in the state", he added. Mr Samal further said the State Government would soon initiate steps for earmarking land for creation of a land bank. The land bank will be used for developing future tourism infrastructure.
The Orissa government is in the process of formulating a new tourism policy with focus on ecotourism, said state environment and forest minster Debi Prasad Mishra. The minister who was earlier in charge of the tourism ministry, said “We are in the process of preparing the draft of a policy framework which would promote ecotourism in the state. We have identified places like Tikerpada, Bhitarkanika, and Chilika Lake for this purpose. Through this policy we will ensure less ecological threat to these places while tapping the revenue generation potential of these spots”.
In the last decade, the inbound tourist traffic to Orissa, both overseas and domestic, has hit a plateau. In 1988, Kerala had around 700 foreign tourists while Orissa could boast of 38000 foreign tourists. That time Andhra Pradesh even did not bother to keep any figures of foreign tourists in-flow.
Today, in sharp contrast, while foreign tourists in-flow to Orissa remained stagnant at 40000, Andhra Pradesh attracted 3,23,000 International tourists and 155 lakh domestic tourists in 2010", HRAO chairman, J K Mohanty said while giving a presentation at the workshop.
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