Travel News and Updates: west bengal tourism

To give it a further boost, West Bengal tourism department has taken an elaborate promotional plan for the northern corner of the state as a part of its international travel mart 'Destination East'.

"Among all sectors of trade and commerce, tourism business has been one of the deepest sufferers of the situation. Now it is the time to turn around," said tourism minister of the state Gautam Deb.

"Under Destination East travel mart, a special promotional initiative has been chalked out to showcase Darjeeling hills and adjoining foothills to the international travel trade representatives," He added.

"Their first-hand experience will be the confidence builder for travels from their respective locations to Darjeeling as well as the entire eastern Himalayan region," said veteran travel consultant Raj Basu.

Destination east is a joint endeavor of state tourism and Confederation of Indian industries to showcase and promote new and non-conventional to international buyers. Beginning in 2010 with 30 representatives from south Asian countries only, the travel mart will have 102 visitors from 30 countries in 2018.

Source: economictimes

Observing the tremendous tourism potential in Northeast the Union Ministry of tourism decided to promote Northeast as a single tourism destination targeting to double the tourist inflow within next three year.

"From 2013 to 2016, the tourism sector in North East grew by 5.2% During this period, 77 lakh domestic and 1.6 lakh foreign tourists visited the region. This growth is encouraging, but it is just the tip of the iceberg," According to Ms Verma, "If we do an aggressive marketing campaign and awareness it is not difficult to double the foreign and domestic tourist arrival in next few years."

Reportedly the ministry has selected to promote eight north-eastern states (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura) as the region has a huge potential of cultural heritage, eco-tourism and adventurous tourism under the current slogan- Paradise Unexplored.

The tourism ministry informed that they are also working with border countries like Nepal so that tourist coming to Nepal can also come to India they said

"We are working out packages with BIMSTEC and ASEAN countries. Very soon we will have a tourism roadshow in Thailand. With this efforts, we expect the growth of tourism in Northeast India will commensurate with the growth of tourism in the country”

Thus, it's good news for the tourism industry, We can expect that this will create a lot of jobs and opportunities for locals as well as travel agencies.