To boost the tourism sector, the State Government has decided to promote home stay facilities at nature trails and ecotourist spots.
The decision was taken at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy on Monday. Tourism SecretaryVishal Dev outlined the issues for discussion.
Highlighting the treasure of nature tourism in the State, Tripathy directed the Tourism Department to develop home stay facilities in the remote areas untouched by hotel network.
He said facilities should be linked with global online travel aggregators such as AIRBNB, OYO, MakeMyTrip etc and onboarded to their respective sites”.
He asked Tourism and Forest and Environment departments to train the local home stay unit owners and field level officials properly so that they could provide best cultural, cuisine and social experiences to the tourists.
It was decided that the home stay facility would be supported from the FY 2021-22 for a period of 10 years. In the first phase, home stay facilities would be created at Buddhist circuit of Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri, Onkadelli in Koraput district, Khola, Gupti, Dangmala and Bhitarkanika National Park in Kendrapara district, Daringibadi and Belghar in Kandhamala, Simlipal, Pithabata and Jashipur in Mayurbhanj distirict, Tikarpada and Satakosia in Angul distsrict, Magalajodi and Chilika in Khordha district and Dhodrokusum and Zero pint in Bargarh district.
It was decided that around 80 home stay providers at these places would be incentivised each year with financial support. Each home stay unit can let out one to six rooms (upto 12 beds) to guests. The lettable rooms must be located in the premises where the owner or his family members normally resides. The owner or his family member should be directly involved in providing hospitality to the guests. A room should be at least 120 sq ft size for twin sharing with attached bathroom and toilet. There should be proper fan and air cooler arrangement, kitchen, power back, pest control and first aid facilities in the home stay units.
Tripathy directed to work out details for providing onetime financial support to the owners for proper furnishing and addition of amenities. The department was also advised to put in place proper mechanism at the district level to facilitate and carry forward the intervention.