Orissa tour operators and hoteliers will have a better opportunity to make few more business deals in the third edition of Destination East project this year, as about half of the 53 foreign delegates invited for this tourism mart are visiting the state, said eastern region chapter of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

“A total of 53 tour operators from several European and Southeast Asian countries are participating in Destination 2012. We are taking 28 of them to showcase Orissa’s tourism potential as part of our Destination Odisha product,” said Saugat Mukherjee, eastern region director of CII.

The delegates will be shown Chilika lake, several famous temples, Pipili applique work and other historical places of importance such as Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves during their one and half a day journey on 26 and 27 February. 

As Orissa Tourism did not take part in Destination East last year, the buyer-seller meet did not take place in the state, although the state was included in the familiarization trip of foreign delegates. But this year, as there will be buyer-seller meet in Orissa, along with Bihar and West Bengal, there is a chance for state tourism stake holders to clinch some business deals, elaborated Mukherjee.

On 27th February afternoon, there will be a buyer-seller meet in Bhubaneswar. The meet will be attended by buyers from the United Kingdom, the Netherland, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, he said.In the second edition of Destination East, about 400 deals were closed between Indian and foreign travel entrepreneurs, resulting in generating of aboutRs 1,000 crore business for the region.

The CII is expecting about 500 such deals to be closed out of Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa region this year.Despite the economic uncertainty in the European region and slowdown in the Asian countries, the tourism sector has not been hit hard. Rather, the demand for travel industry is rising, the CII official said.

“Last year, only eight countries participated in the Destination East. But this year, the number of counters representing in the travel mart has gone up to 13, which shows there is absolutely no sign of slowdown,” Mukherjee said.