Despite Tourism and Culture Minister Ashok Chandra Panda’s tall talks, the growth of domestic tourist traffic to Odisha is apparently on a downhill slope. Post the double-digit growth in the domestic tourist inflow to Odisha in 2014, the rate looks making a climb down. When in 2015 the rate slid to around 9 per cent, in year 2016 the rate of growth dipped further to 8.7 per cent.
The result: Odisha had to stay put at a distant 19th position in the domestic tourist inflow rank nationally in 2016. In the total national domestic tourist traffic generated in 2016, Odisha has a share of around 8 per cent only. Almost all neighbouring States figure out in the top-15 tourist inflow States except Chhattisgarh that is placed at 17th, but higher than Odisha.
When Odisha has been promoted as ‘soul’ of India by the Odisha Government showcasing a high-voltage package of tourist sites ranging from virgin sea beaches to heritage temple architecture and art, lake adventurism and wildlife voyage, etc, the distressing fact, however, is flow of domestic tourist numbers over the last five years to Odisha is far behind from the neighbouring States like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, which don’t simply have the variety in their packaged tourist sites that Odisha has. This shows that the potentials of Odisha have still not been explored. And at this point, the deceleration in the tourist growth rate for two consecutive years begs many a question.
Significantly, riding on a successful marketing strategy of launching stunning advertisements with catchy liners like ‘MP Gazab Hai, MP Ajab Hai’, Madhya Pradesh is the only State that posted a humungous 93-per cent rise in domestic tourist traffic in 2016 to cross the 15-crore mark from below 8 crore in 2015.
“The success behind MP’s ‘Gazab’ growth has been the diversification and innovative content in marketing. Before a brand fatigue sets in, they were infusing a new life and weave another winning tourism campaign around the theme, which is not the case with Odisha”, said a senior IAS official, who was a former Tourism Secretary. Moreover, Odisha, unlike MP, is yet to emerge with a ‘tourism-friendly image’; and when that transformation happens, it would be the game changer for the State’s tourism sector, he elaborated. Odisha should work hard to develop a tourist ‘experience’ than tourist ‘spots’, he added.
In foreign tourist arrivals also, Odisha remained at a more remote place of 21 in the country last year. However, the consolation fact is it held on to its 2015 rank. The State saw visit of over 76,360 overseas tourists last year, and th traffic grew by a strong 14 per cent. But the nagging fact is that the growth is not consistent as the numbers have posted only a big decline in 2015. Experts attribute the inconsistency to non-popularisation of ‘theme-based’ tourism in the State which plays a major role in attracting foreign visitors to a destination.
Also, like Madhya Pradesh, the Odisha Government has to hold tourism conferences in association with leading brand hotel chains in overseas countries which could be the potential tourist generators, they observe.