Patna: Tourism minister Nitish Mishra on Wednesday said that the sector in the state had become comprehensive and the number of tourists, including domestic as well as foreign, has increased recently.
Speaking at the concluding ceremony of the two-day Travel and Tourism Fair (TTF) 2024 organised at Gyan Bhawan here, Mishra said, “Tourism department is engaged in building infrastructural facility across the state and simultaneously promoting the tourist spots for awareness among people.” He also urged the residents to inform people of other states about transformed Bihar to boost tourists’ footfall in the state.
He said that the department would also focus on increasing the number of domestic tourists visiting from various different places of the country, besides attracting international visitors.
Department secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh said on the occasion that they have received various suggestions from the participants during the TTF event that would be useful in policy making in the sector.
Earlier, in a panel discussion on ‘Thrills and Trails: The Potential of Adventure Tourism’, experts from the sector said that Bihar was capable enough to be developed as one of the major adventure tourism hubs in the country, and only some support from the government, including specific adventure tourism policy, was needed for developing the unexplored areas in the state.
The specialists exhorted that for developing adventure tourism, adventure sports should be encouraged among children from young age and even women should be encouraged in the area.
However, the destination management companies and travel agencies’ representatives complained that footfall for enquiries and the same turning into bookings was not that much encouraging despite October to February being considered as good period from tourism point of view. “We have been waiting since morning, but nobody turned up for any tourism related enquiry, forget about booking,” said a Mumbai-based Adventure and Leisure Tour Company’s employee.
Vijay Jadhav, deputy director of tourism (Maharashtra) said that last year’s response was good, but this time it was a bad show for them. “I think either good number of people are not aware of the event or maybe they failed to turn up on account of the days not being weekend,” said Jadhav, while figuring out the reason for the poor show.
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