Category Archives: States

Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) is receiving warm response ahead for its 11th edition this September, with nearly 1,000 people proposing participation within the first three weeks of registration for the country’s biggest tourism event. July 31 is the last date for pre-registration of what is the country’s biggest tourism event that will bring entrepreneurs across India and abroad to the state’s products and services in the travel industry. The three-day biennial event, starting after the inauguration on September 24 evening, will be held at the Sagara and Samudrika Convention Centre of Cochin Port Trust in Willingdon Island here. As pre-registrations started on January 20, as many as 548 applications have come in from within the country, 165 from abroad. These include 47 entries from the international media and 21 from the domestic. The 2000-founded KTM Society is the biggest tourism body of Kerala. “The pre-registration rush shows that KTM continues to show the faith people have in the event,” said KTM President Baby Mathew Somatheeram. “The 2018 KTM could give Kerala’s tourism to new direction and fresh energy after the natural calamity the state faced that year. The coming edition, too, will toe that line, aiming to present innovative products and services that can rejuvenate the sector,” he added.

Bengal Travel Mart (BTM) 2020 will be held from 22-24 February in Siliguri. BTM brings together the business fraternity and tourism products and services. A varied range of sellers with different tourism products of the region will participate in the mart. This B2B event has been carefully thought out and planned in such a way that sellers and potential buyers of services have the opportunity to establish partnerships within the space of a single day or 2 days. The main aim is to expand the geography of sales of the exhibition’s participants and to introduce players to new areas and services to which they previously did not have access. For registrations, please log on to www.bengaltravelmart.in.

The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to promote rural tourism to boost economic activities in the state. PC Sharma, Cabinet Minister of Public Relations Department said the state has received Rs 229 crore as initial funding from the Central government for the same. As per reports, the MP government has identified 100 villages that could be showcased for rural tourism. This would involve a great deal of capacity building and training apart from preparing the villagers for rural homestays and other activities. “The objective of development of rural tourism in MP is to showcase rural life, culture, heritage art and craft, handloom and textile. We will select and groom village entertainment groups to unveil the local history and culture, natural and oral treasures, which are major tourist attraction these days,” said Sharma.

To attract more tourists through web series, advertisements, documentaries and films, the Gujarat government is likely to announce a policy soon to provide aid and financial incentives to shoot films and videos in Gujarat. The state tourism policy contains guidelines for cinematic tourism, but it does not offer any financial support or benefits to attract film producers. “Apart from Gujarat’s proximity to Mumbai, we have the best beaches, heritage properties, mountains, deserts, rivers, modern buildings and other locations to offer. The state government has decided to form a new policy to promote cinematic tourism in the state,” said, Mamta Verma, Tourism Secretary, Gujarat.

Tourism Minister of Kerala, Kadakampally Surendran has said that after three confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, the tourism sector is badly affected as hotel bookings have suffered mass cancellations for the month of February and March. “Several bookings in hotels for the months of February and March have been cancelled. The bookings were almost full for these months earlier. The cancellations now are much more, compared to that after Nipah virus was reported. A lot of misinformation on the virus is being spread too,” said Surendran in the state Assembly during the question hour. Urging media to exercise self-restraint during the time of calamities and keep themselves away from fearmongering, the minister said blowing up issues beyond proportion was largely affecting tourism industry. A total of 8.19 lakh tourists had visited the southern state, popularly known as the “God’s Own Country”, in 9 months in 2019, which was 10.96 lakh in 2018, the minister added.

Tripura Government is all set to host an event on similar lines of Nagaland’s Hornbill Festival from February 8-9, 2020, in order to boost tourism in the state. The two-day festival will be organised in Hathai Kortor or Baramura Hills in West district. It was decided last year that the Government will organise a festival on the lines of the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland since forest official Animesh Das said several hornbills are spotted in Tripura. The name of the festival in Tripura has not been decided yet. The forest officials have even set up a Hornbill viewpoint at Baramura hills, where fruit-bearing trees have been grown for the birds.

Kerala Tourism is organising partnership meets and participating in in ten cites across India in the first quarter of 2020, in order to attract domestic tourists to the destination. The cities include Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata, Guwahati, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Kadakampally Surendran, Tourism Minister, Kerala, revealed that domestic tourist arrivals in Kerala in 2019 saw an overall increase as compared to 2018. The number of domestic tourist arrivals in Kerala is up by 16 per cent for the first three Quarters in 2019

The Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has announced a ban on ‘domiciled Goans’ from entering casinos (both offshore & onshore) and placing bets in the state from February 1 and said a mechanism to enforce the restriction will be framed soon. “All Goans will be banned from entering casinos for playing purposes from February 1. They can continue to work in the industry but will not be allowed to gamble. The Commercial Tax Commissioner will be appointed a Gaming Commissioner, who will enforce the ban. The authority will have the powers to check if any local Goan is gambling. The Gaming Commission will be given the powers to formulate rules and regulations for the industry,” told the CM in Panaji.  There are currently six offshore and nine onshore casinos operating in Goa.

Ajay Bakaya, MD, Sarovar Hotels & Resorts says, “We are looking forward to opening around 10-15 hotels in 2020 and I hope to crack 100-hotel mark by the end of this year, which means we will be opening 800 plus rooms this year. Some of the locations where we will be opening our hotels are, Morbi, Dalhousie, Latur, Udaipur, Jalandhar, Katra, Greater Noida West etc.

The Sun Temple at Konark, Odisha will soon be included in the list of iconic tourist sites, said the Union Tourism Minister, Prahlad Singh Patel. Last year, the government announced in budget to develop 17 tourism sites across the country under the Iconic Tourist Sites Development Project with a budget of Rs 5000 crore. Leaders and stakeholders from Odisha have since then demanding to include the Sun Temple of Konark in the list. No other destination from the state was included in the list. “The people of Odisha will soon receive the good news about Konark being included in the list of iconic sites. We will organise a special event to announce the inclusion very soon,” said the Minister while addressing at the concluding ceremony of two-day long National Tourism Conference at Konark. He also visited the Sun temple and reviewed the necessary preservation plans with the Archaeological Survey of India officials. Last year, there was a huge hue and cry about Konark not making it to the list announced by the Ministry of Tourism. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had requested the Union Tourism Minister to include at least two tourist places of importance from the state in the list of iconic tourist sites to be developed by the Centre.