With another tourist season round the corner, mandarins in Orissa?s tourism department are busy lining up travel packages and giving a facelift to major tourist hot-spots.
For domestic tourists, travel packages of various sizes are being readied for destinations like Puri, Konark, Chilika, Satapada and Sambalpur.
For foreign tourists, the department, in collaboration with the culture department, has planned a month-long cultural festival during November, with programmes like the Puri beach festival, Dhauli Mahotsav, Kharavela Utsav, Rajarani Music Festival, Konark Dance Festival etc.
For the first time, Orissa is also planning to offer a ?shopping experience? to tourists. With support from the Union tourism department, the state is planning to organise ?tourism shopping of handicrafts?. Come November, high-end tourists will be offered an ?exciting experience? in three artificial islands in Chilika, the largest brackish water lagoon in Asia.
?Island tourism is a big hit elsewhere, but Orissa is waking up to it for the first time?, says state tourism director, Rabi Narayan Nanda.
The three islands of different sizes?the largest spread over 21 acre and the smallest over 8 acre?have been created out of dredged material.
The state tourism department and the Chilika Development Authority have joined hands to develop the three islands near Muggermukh. Private operators will be selected through the bidding route to develop camp tourism in these islands, says Nanda.
The operators will provide at least 3-star tent accommodations along with transportation and security to tourists, he added.
The island tourism package will be e-marketed by the government soon.
As per data with the Orissa tourism department, over 96,000 domestic and foreign tourists visited Chilika taking the Satapada route in 2006. But most of the tourists spent less than a day in the lagoon. To encourage them to spend a longer time, the new-found island tourism would provide comfortable accommodation to the visitors.
?Despite financial constraints, we are trying hard to sell Orissa to international tourists?, says state tourism minister Debi Mishra.
The state government has pegged the Plan outlay for tourism at Rs 42.09 crore for the 11th Plan period. For the first year of the Plan period (2007-08,) Rs 13.40 crore has been earmarked. This is less than the last year?s outlay.