Category Archives: States

Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) participated in India International Travel Mart (IITM) at Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, Chennai from July 29 to 31, 2016 for promotion of Maharashtra Tourism amongst the B2B, travel trade and media fraternity of Chennai. MTDC also held a road show on July 29, post exhibition to promote the state and enthrall the Chennai trade. Swati Kale, General Manager, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation said, “Tamil Nadu is one of the most developed states of India with a large class of educated and affluent society. Maharashtra has rich tourist destinations to satiate the needs of tourists from Tamil Nadu. With Chennai being an important market from tourist point of view it is imperative for us to showcase Maharashtra and its best products to the B2B, Travel Trade fraternity, stakeholders and media. From exotic beaches to historic forts, scuba diving to fort trekking, heli tourism to deccan odyssey, delicious cuisine to culture and heritage monuments there is a lot to explore in Maharashtra. The list is endless and that is what we aim to showcase through these road shows.” On these initiatives, Minister of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra Jaykumar Jitendrasinh Rawal commented, “The Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis has declared the year 2017 as the ‘Visit Maharashtra Year’ as part of its tourism development strategy. In view of the same, Department of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra, planned to organize a series of roadshows, events, festivals and cultural programmes throughout India to promote the state’s tourism attractions. The objective of MTDC’s participation at IITM is to promote Maharashtra as the world-class tourist destination, and offer opportunity to travel & tour operators to interact with foreign buyers, retail buyers, …

Sikkim has added another feather to its cap with the recent addition of the Khangchendzonga National Park to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites as India’s first ‘Mixed World Heritage Site’. The UNESCO recognition will give a further push to eco-tourism in our state, while also helping us to regulate the high influx of visitors to more popular destinations with only a minimal negative impact of tourism,” said Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling. “This is important since tourist arrivals to our state more than doubled to 38,479 in 2015 and our target is around 12 lakh visitors by 2025,” he said in a statement. The park was initially commissioned in August 1977 with a declared area of 850 Sq km and was extended to 1,784 sq.km some years later. Khangchendzonga National Park had been on the Unesco’s tentative list of World Heritage Sites since 2006, and has among the sharpest altitudinal variations for any site in the world — from a low of 1,220 metres to 8,586 metres — within a small aerial distance of 42 km.

The Department of Tourism, Government of Karnataka has unveiled the newly formed Bengaluru Tourism Advisory Committee (BTAC) under the chairmanship of Priyank Kharge, Minister for Tourism and IT & BT. The scope of the committee is to provide quick action plans for developing Bengaluru region as a tourist destination by creating Brand Bengaluru, identifying different circuits and trails, offering tourism technologies, drawing a calendar of events, promoting art and culture, attracting PPP projects and engaging in inter-city-cooperation concepts. Understanding the tourism potential of Bengaluru and to brand it as a global city and the most favourable urban tourism destination, BTAC was formed after a month of brainstorming sessions and deliberations. Further the committee will help in positioning the state capital as a well connected holiday destination by involving local talent pool and the effective development of local employment and subsequent revenue generation. The committee will also be responsible in enhancing positive perceptions about the city through engagements with travellers across the world which, in turn, will help drive tourism, thus making Bengaluru a SMART global city. The committee will consist of the top officials in the Tourism Department and also experts from verticals such as heritage, urban, landscape, hospitality, architecture and conservationists who can contribute towards branding Bengaluru. As per the statistics provided by the Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (KIAL), the international airport alone received 18 million travellers during 2015. Yet, Bengaluru has not been able to convert these travellers’ figures into tourists. It is estimated that with at least 25% of KIAL travellers spending one day in the city, a minimum revenue of $450 mn per year can be generated.

The West Bengal Tourism department has launched a mobile App based on its theme of ‘Experience Bengal’. Alongside information on places of tourist interest, the App would be loaded with other facilities like maps and directions. The sight would be powered by information on each and district of the state and the various places that can be visited and activities that can be taken up. There would also be information on the various festivals of the state. Through some related links on the App, the users can also get access to Facebook, Twitter Page of West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation and Bengal cuisine website. Online booking facilities would also be available through the App available on android.(Source: Economic Times)

Kerala received 9,77,479 foreign tourists in the year 2015 recording a growth of 5.86 per cent over the previous year’s figure of 9,23,366. Domestic tourists footfall during the same period was 1,24,65,571 with a growth of 6.59 per cent over the previous year’s figure 1,16,95,411. Nandakumar K P, Deputy Director, Kerala Tourism, recently informed at a roadshow held in New Delhi. He also said, “Tourist figures to Kerala have been growing vigorously for the past twenty years. We only saw a little bit of slow down last year and previous year but we are still growing. So, this year we are coming out with a five year action plan to increase footfall. We are going to increase the accommodation facilities and availability and increase the number of classified hotels. We are going to introduce more than 1000 home stays also. We are also going to tap new international markets like the Eastern Europe which is an emerging market for us.” He also informs that the state aims to add 5,00,000 more employment opportunities in the tourism sector in the next five years.

Department of Tourism, Government of Karnataka has appointed Dr. N. Manjula, IAS, as its new Director. Dr. Manjula, a 2002-Batch IAS officer had earlier held the posts of Director, Municipal Administration; District Collector, Chikkaballapur; CEO, Zilla Panchayath, Mysuru.

The Government of Maharashtra has appointed Jaykumar Rawal as the new Tourism Minister as on July 8, 2016. Rawal took oath as Cabinet Minister and will also be handling the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) in Maharashtra in his portfolio. He holds a degree in Bachelors of Commerce from Symbiosis University, Pune and degree in Business Management from Cardiff University, England. He takes over from Prof Ram Shinde. On taking over charge of his new role as a Tourism Minister, Rawal immediately had a meeting with Madan Yerawar, State Minister Tourism, Government of Maharashtra and higher officials of Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) including Valsa Nair Singh, IAS, Principal Secretary, Tourism & Cultural Affairs, Government of Maharashtra; Satish Soni, Joint MD, MTDC; Swati Kale, GM, MTDC, amongst other Head of Departments. He reviewed the current tourism projects and provided valuable guidance and direction to the Department of Tourism during the meeting. On the appointment Rawal said, “My key focus will be to advance the current tourism scenario in Maharashtra through implementation of new policies aimed towards tourism growth and skill development. We have great platforms like Visit Maharashtra 2017 campaign and SAARC Summit in Aurangabad in the pipeline. The Tourism Ministry will soon announce the launch of creative contests for logo designing for Visit Maharashtra 2017 campaign and tagline for Maharashtra Tourism.”

Kerala Government has allotted Rs 100 crore each for the Alappuzha and Thalassery Heritage Tourism projects in its budget for the year 2016-17. The annual budget was presented by Dr Thomas Issac, Finance Minister, Government of Kerala. Another Rs 400 crore was allotted for improving the existing infrastructural conditions in select tourism destinations identified across the state. A ropeway project was also announced at Ponmudi. For which Rs 200 crore shall be allotted. The budget also proposed development of air strips at Bekal, Wayand and Idukki in order to connect far flung destinations. However the bus trips to Bengaluru and Chennai will cost more now as tax of tourist buses has been increased. Green Tax on old vehicles and goods transport has also been increased by 10 per cent.

In a bid to garner investments worth Rs 20,000 crore by 2029 for tourism projects in the state, Andhra Pradesh tourism department organised an investor’s meet which was attended by more than 26 key investors for multiple sectors like hotels, water sports, cruises among others on July 5. The department in a statement said that Andhra Pradesh is endeavouring to make the state an ideal destination for investments and facilitate ease of doing business. The tourism department also added that the progress of each project was reviewed with various departments and investors’ pending issues were resolved across the table. Investors such as ANI Technologies (Ola), Amaravati Tourism, Samudra Shipyard, Shore View Hospitality, Sky Choppers, Water Sports Simple participated in the discussions. Urging the investors to begin commercial operations at the earliest and assuring them of coordinated effort by all relevant government departments to ensure ease of doing business and faster project execution, Neerabh Kumar Prasad, Principal Secretary-Tourism, Government of Andhra Pradesh, said, “Time is ripe to fast track the execution of projects and ensure timely completion. We stand committed to extend our full cooperation to all investors to streamline the entire process.” He also informed that in total 33 new projects have taken off with an investment of Rs 2,400 crore which generate sizeable employment opportunities as well. The state has already seen investments from prominent hospitality brands such as ITC, Accor Group, Taj, JW Marriot etc. and has launched many water sports and adventure tourism facilities in Vijayawada along with some other places in the state.

Maharashtra Government will provide financial assistance of upto Rs 50 lakh to persons who wish to set up their tourism business under its Start Up scheme. This was announced by Valsa Nair Singh, IAS, Principal Secretary,  Tourism and Culture, Government of Maharashtra. She added, “The coming two years are very important for the progress and prosperity of the tourism sector. The year 2017 will be celebrated as Visit Maharashtra Year and the year 2018 we will be celebrating completion of 200 years of the discovery of the world heritage Ajanta Caves by British officer John Smith. A campaign to promote tourism destinations of Maharashtra all over the world will be undertaken aggressively under Visit Maharashtra 2017. In 2018, many events will be hosted to attract international and domestic tourists to Ajanta and other destinations of the city. There is a huge scope to organise Food Festival and Handicraft Festival in the city, apart from Golf Tourism. A proposal to set up Buddhist Centre on MTDC’s 900 acres land at Ellora is under consideration.” The three-day Ellora-Ajanta Festival will be held with the help of the MTDC from October 14 to 16, said the principal secretary suggesting the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation to run an excursion bus to conduct City Tours connecting all the tourist places. She also underlined the need of enhancing the air connectivity of Aurangabad with cities like Jaipur, Udaipur, Nagpur and Pune other than Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad. Mentioning the need for hosting film shootings at Ellora, Ajanta and other important places in Aurangabad, Smt. Valsa Nair Singh commented “The countries like Switzerland and Spain witnessed a boom in tourism due to film shootings. A beeline was formed to see …