The Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) is expecting sizeable tourist traffic from Chhattisgarh in Tamil Nadu with its first ever major tourism promotion exercise taken up in this Central Indian State.
Har Sahay Meena, Commissioner and Managing Director (MD) of TTDC met the Chhattisgarh Tourism Department Special Secretary Santosh Kumar Misra on Monday wherein it was decided to focus on the ‘Rail cum Road Package Tours’ from Chhattisgarh to Tamil Nadu and vice versa.
Talking to The Pioneer on the sidelines of a media interaction at a city hotel on Tuesday, Meena said, “Our department’s Office at Bhopal is scheduled to function from January 2016 onwards. It will help us attract more tourists from Madhya Pradesh as well as Chhattisgarh. We have 25 buses from Chennai including two Volvo buses to carry out the tour covering the prominent tourist sites.”
Notably, TTDC offices are presently functioning at Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Nagpur.
Meena said the maximum tourist arrivals are from Maharashtra adding that the Rail transportation tie up for these centres with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will be available from the Bhopal office as well.
To tackle the language issues, TTDC offers Hindi speaking guides during the tour. Also, the North Indian meals are ensured for the out-station visitors.
Interestingly, TTDC has invited Chhattisgarh’s folk artists to participate in the month-long Indian Dance Festival at Mamallapuram scheduled from January 5 to February 5,2016 .
“The grand fest was postponed due to the massive floods in our State. We ensure inviting artists from every State in the Indian Festival to maintain our inter-State relations. We felicitate people from the nation and abroad who attend the programme for the whole month,” said Meena.
Asked about the floods affecting a number of Tamil Nadu districts few days back, the MD confirmed that only Chennai and Kanchipuram were worst affected but the situation in all the districts is now normalised.
“We suffered a big loss from the student tourists,” he said. To associate the culture of Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, Meena visited Rajim, Champaran and Naya Raipur. “I noticed metal made items are seen in both the states. But, here it represents tribal persons and animal and in Tamil Nadu it is only about god,” he said.
It was the first time ever the Tamil Nadu Government officials were here for tourism publicity and marketing activities.
Tamil Nadu Tourism Department Publicity Officer M. Gajendra mentioned that TTDC organizes publicity campaigns throughout the country every year to promote its rich heritage and offers customized package for discerning tourists and operators.
“Because of the continuous efforts, in 2014 Tamil Nadu ranked first in both domestic (3275.55 lakh) and foreign (46.58 lakh) tourist arrivals in India. It is the fourth largest economy of the country and Tourism is one of the main sources of its revenue,” TTDC MD Meena said.
Observing the mass acceptance of Hindi, the Tamil Nadu government is translating its Hindu Temple books from English to Hindi which is likely to complete in the next six months, he said
Meena said Tamil Nadu is known for religious, medical, education and wildlife tourism and they are looking forward to popularize it. Crackers, Anti-Venom and Clothes of this state are supplied across the country.