Odisha is looking beyond temple tourism. So what will the state focus on next?

Among the imaginable locations identified for improvement see Hirakud, the longest earthen dam successful the world, which stands crossed the Mahanadi river; the Satkosia gorge, carved by Mahanadi; Bhitarkanika, India’s second-largest mangrove ecosystem aft the Sunderbans; Deomali, Odisha’s highest upland peak; the Buddhist circuit; tribal areas; and beaches similar Gopalpur and Talsari.

“Compared to different states, Odisha draws less tourists and those who travel are mostly concentrated successful Puri, Konark, and Bhubaneswar – the state’s astir fashionable tourism circuit. Tourists travel to these places for spiritual tourism, visiting the Puri Jagannath Temple, the Konark Temple and the Lingaraj Temple,” a tourism section authoritative said.

While “high-end” tourists besides sojourn these places, they mostly don’t enactment owed to a deficiency of capable accommodation facilities and different basal infrastructure. “It’s precocious clip we code those issues to pull high-spending tourists to the state,” the authoritative said.

Considering the state’s immense scope for quality tourism, including agelong beaches, mountains, lagoons, and wildlife sanctuaries, sources said the authorities is present looking astatine processing specified mostly untapped locations.

According to officials, successful accordance with the Centre’s assurance of enactment to the authorities with peculiar assistance for tourism development, the authorities authorities volition soon taxable a study specifying areas that request to beryllium addressed.

It is apt to revisit the tourism argumentation prepared by the erstwhile BJD authorities successful 2022.

Officials said the authorities cannot make the tourism assemblage connected its own, and needs to enactment successful backstage players to make bully properties adjacent imaginable tourism locations arsenic good arsenic marketplace the state’s tourism imaginable to the nationalist and planetary audience.

The state’s program besides includes involving section communities.

Though Odisha has seen a dependable maturation successful the accomplishment of home tourists, with implicit 1 crore footfall recorded successful 2023, the authorities has failed to find a spot successful the itinerary of overseas tourists coming to India.

According to authorities Tourism Department data, the fig of home tourists successful 2020 was 46.32 lakh, portion successful 2021, it was 37.44 lakh, and successful 2022, it was 78.90 lakh. The fig of overseas tourists was 10,206 successful 2020, 2,269 successful 2021 and 22,121 successful 2022.