Odisha Tourism Minister Ashok Chandra Panda, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, Tourism Department, Sports & Youth Services Department Commissioner-cum-Secretary Vishal Kumar Dev and others will attend the Inaugural ceremony of three-day Odisha Travel Bazaar.
Participants of 60 Foreign Tour Operators from 23 countries are slated to take part in this year’s mega travel bazaar which is being organized by the Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha and FICCI.
The participants will congregate to interact and will engage themselves with 56 Sellers comprising of travel agencies and hoteliers from Odisha to showcase and sell the Odisha travel product internationally and within the country.
Invited Foreign Tour Operators, Domestic Tour Operators took pre-event Familiarization (FAM) Trips in different tourist locations of Odisha to experience the richness and vibrancy of the state.
Apart from the FAM trip and one to one business meetings the FTO’s & DTO’s will be taken to local site seeing of Bhubaneswar, Heritage walk at Old town of Bhubaneswar, Udaygiri & Khandagiri. Also, a special light and sound show will be organised at Dhauli for them.
As compared to last year, there has been a surge in the number of foreign buyers from 45 last year to 60 participants this year. Similarly, domestic tour operators increased from 10 last year to 16 participants this year. There is also an increase in the pre-scheduled B2B meetings between Buyers and Sellers which is 1800 this year compared to 1300 B2B meetings held in the first edition of OTB.
A presentation on ‘Odisha Tourism’ will be made by the Director and Addl. Secretary, Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha after the Inaugural Session. A special panel discussion on “Taking Odisha Tourism to the next level” will be held.
Prasanta Patnaik