Thursday, March 18, 2010

Rs 718 cr for image makeover

State plans spruce up of tourist spots to attract foreigners

Upset with the low inflow of foreign tourists to Orissa, the Naveen Patanik government has decided to fork out Rs 718 crore for the all-round development of tourism in the state. Besides spruce up of various tourist places all across the state, the five year plan also focuses on direct and indirect employment generation. State tourism minister Devi Prasad Mishra says: “This plan envisages jobs to about 4.2 lakh people. Some 1.2 lakh people will get direct jobs from this project.”

Also, the government will be working overtime to improve its image that took a beating after the communal violence in Kandhamal district. “As the rate of foreign tourist flow is low, the Orissa government has decided to launch its campaign in international media to attract foreigners. Of the 69.1 lakh tourists who visited the state last year, the ratio of foreign tourists was only one per cent. Now efforts are on to woo them by developing beach tourism, eco-tourism, rural tourism and Buddhist tourism,” the minister told the reporters.

The government is claiming that favourable environment has been created in the state to increase inflow of tourists. However, some in the tourism industry don’t agree with the government. They say, a lot has to be done. They cite of incidents in which foreign and domestic tourists were attacked. In January 2009, a Russian tourist Lisina Nadedza, a telecom engineer, was stabbed and robbed of her belongings in beach town of Puri. Police reports confirm the incident. Though the cops arrested the culprits but the incident dented state’s image. Likewise, louts abused an elderly Swiss woman Monika Kessler and her brother Niklaus Kessler last year. A local resident accompanying them was also assaulted. Ironically, the cops who were on the spot had even refused to accept tourists’ complaint. Horrified by the experience, the duo decided to cut short their trip, lodging complaints with the Swiss Embassy. Not only foreign tourists, even local tourists are unsafe in the state. Last week police busted a racket of anti-socials, who had been blackmailing local tourists in Ratnagiri, a popular Buddhist heritage site. They were accused of clicking obscene pictures and videos of couples forcefully. The racket was going on for the last one year. But the Jajpur police arrested four people belonging to a nearby village involved in the harassment and blackmailing of tourists.
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Source :
IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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