While interacting with the stakeholders through a virtual meeting organised recently, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Minister of Tourism, Odia Language, Literature and Culture, Government of Odisha revealed:
“The Chief Minister is expected to soon announce financial packages for the tourism sector. The need is to work towards sustainable tourism, and we cannot have a situation where risk management is not taken care of.”
He further informed that the budget allotted for the tourism sector this year has seen an unprecedented increase. “The Chief Minister wants to take Odisha tourism to global standards. We all must understand that the sector needs help to bounce back.”
Elaborating more on the financial package for tourism, Principal Secretary, Sports and Youth Services and Tourism, Government of Odisha Vishal Kumar Dev said: We are working on a detailed support package to be offered to the industry, which would include hotels, restaurants, tour operators, and self-employed people including photographers, guides, etc., among others.”
Highlighting the measures to promote Odisha tourism, Dev further informed, “We are looking at roadshows, road trips from the neighbouring states, and scaling up of eco-retreats to cover more destinations. We have selected a partner that will help us in curating various itineraries and immersive experience packages to promote these packages.”
“For the long term, there has been a change in our approach to infrastructure development. We are developing infrastructure in a very planned and integrated manner. We are also looking at destinations in a holistic manner and a preparing master plan for each destination. A priority destination list has been identified consisting of 70 circuits and the government will invest in a big way. Our infrastructure development budget for this year has been doubled,” he added.
“We will also be investing in new products, especially cruises and houseboats. We have selected India’s largest river cruise operator to start catamarans. By early next year we will have Odisha on the luxury river cruise map of the country,” concludes Dev.
