Less than one percent of foreign tourists coming to country visit Odisha

BHUBANESHWAR: Less than one percent of the foreign tourists coming to the country visit Odisha. Besides, contribution of tourism to the state's GSDP has also decreased.

This has come to the fore from a written reply given by minister of state for tourism Ashok Chandra Panda to a question from Dilip Ray (BJP) and Prashant Jagdev (BJD). The minister said 0.98 percent of the foreign tourists coming to India had visited Odisha in 2017 against 0.87 percent in 2016. The number of foreign tourists visiting Odisha was lowest at 0.83 percent in 2015, he said.

However, during the period from 2010 to 2018, the number of tourists coming to Odisha has doubled, the minister said and added that 1,41,11,243 tourists had visited the state in 2017 out of which foreign tourists were 1,00,014. Panda said while 84,06,401 tourists were from inside Odisha, 56,04,828 were from other states.

The minister said 50,432 foreign tourists had visited Odisha in 2010 besides 75,91,615 from inside the country. Foreign tourists to the country had increased from 57,75,692 in 2010 to 1,01,77,000 in 2017. Stating that the government has decided to encourage entrepreneurs to set up tourism-based projects at Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar under the Make-in-Odisha programme, Panda said a land bank will also be created by the tourism department.

Statistics provided by the minister in the reply points to the fact that the contribution of tourism sector to the GSDP of the state has decreased in 2017 compared to 2010. The minister said while tourism sector had contributed 13.42 per cent to state's GSDP in 2010-11, the contribution has come down to 10.66 percent in 2017-18.

Stating that Odisha has many tourist attractions, Ray said the state government should take steps to improve tourism amenities to attract more visitors. This will bring in more revenue as well as create employment opportunities, he said.