3-day Odisha Travel Bazar to kick start in Bhubaneswar on October 28

Bhubaneswar(26/10/2022): In a bid to promote Odisha to both domestic and foreign tourists, the Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha and Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) are gearing up to jointly host the 4th edition of Odisha Travel Bazar (OTB) 2022 from October 28-30, 2022 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik will inaugurate the event on October 28. The event will focus on B2B meeting between Tourism Fraternity of Odisha (Sellers) with Domestic Tour Operators (DTOs) and Foreign Tour Operators (FTOs) followed by various FAM tours to the destinations of the state like Bhubaneswar, Konark, Puri, Chilika, Dhauli, Bhitarkanika and Lalitgiri.

B2G meeting with investors and Airlines have also been planned.

The flagship initiative of the Department of Tourism will provide an opportunity to sellers to exhibit their product over the 3-days exhibition to be organised at the venue. About 25 Foreign Tour Operators from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand and Vietnam confirmed their participation for 4th edition of Odisha Travel Bazar.

Similarly, 83 buyers from cities like Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chandrapur, Chennai, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mangalgiri, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nasik, New Delhi and NCR, Panjim, Pune, Raipur, Rohtak, Siliguri, Surendra Nagar, Trivendrum, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam will also participate in the event. Explaining the highlights of the event in a press conference was organised at Hotel Mayfair Lagoon, Bhubaneswar, Ashwini Kumar Patra, Minister of Odia Language, Literature & Culture, Excise and Tourism, Government of Odisha said, "Odisha is abundance of natural resources.

Our state is gaining recognition as a cultural and spiritual tourism hub in recent years.

With 482 kilometre-long coastline, 19 wildlife sanctuaries and our rich culture and heritage, Odisha has full of potential to attract tourists from across the globe.

We are going to organize the Odisha Travel Bazar to showcase the tourism potential of the state to domestic and foreign tour operators as they play a significant role in tourism development. Speaking on the occasion, Surendra Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Tourism spoke about the uniqueness of Odisha, how Caravans are prevalent in Kerala, Maharastra like states and in European countries and how they are cheaper as compared to staying in hotel rooms.

He also threw light on the importance of infrastructure development for promotion of tourism.

He said, "The main objective of organizing Odisha Travel Bazar is to provide a platform to local sellers and tour operators.

We also have plan to organize B2B and G2B meeting. Sachin Ramchandra Jadhav, Director, Department of Tourism said, "Tourism was the worst hit sector due to the COVID pandemic.

We are organizing fourth edition of Odisha Travel Bazar after the COVID gap.

The objective of this event is to aggressively promote the tourist destinations of Odisha to domestic buyers of India as well as in the international market. J K Mohanty, Co-Chairman, FICCI Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Committee and CMD, Swosti Hotels said that, Odisha Tourism department is doing excellent job for promotion of tourist destinations of the state.

For this year, our main focus is on domestic tour operators because 80 percent of our inbound tourists are from within the country.

This time FICCI is also giving more focus on South East Asian countries because of many similarities between our food and culture with them.

Ansuman Rath, OSD, Department of Tourism proposed the vote of thanks .