Bhubaneswar hosted
the highest of 38%
tourists from
abroad
Bhubaneswar: A recent reply by the state Tourism department in the state Assembly regarding the footfall at tourist destinations has showed startling figures.
Tourism Minister Ashok Chandra Panda while responding to queries related to accommodation of visitors and the hospitality sector also furnished data relating to visits of domestic as well as overseas tourists to several districts and other tourist spots in the state. The data claims that Konark hosted only 1 per cent of the foreign tourists visiting the sate during the current year.
As per the statistics of check-ins of overseas tourists in Odisha, between April 2018 and September 2018, Bhubaneswar received the highest arrival of tourists with 15,787 (38 per cent). A total of 41,514 foreigners visited the state during this period. As expected the tourist hotspot of Puri received the second highest footfall with 15,385 foreigners staying at the temple city (37 per cent).
However, much sought after tourism sites Konark and Chilika Lake did not figure among the most preferred destinations when it comes to staying of tourists from abroad. The data also reveals that more number of foreign tourists visited and stayed in places other than Konark and Chilika.
The Assembly data revealed that Konark hosted merely one per cent (433) of the tourists from abroad who visited the state in 2018 while Chilika hosted 0.7 per cent (321) such tourists. But several other places in the state hosted more tourists than Konark and Chilika.
According to the data, the other areas which dominate in the state for hosting maximum tourists after Bhubaneswar and Puri include Rourkela (1902), Brajrajnagar in Jharsuguda (1486), Angul (1249), Paradip (946) and Jajpur Road (743).
According to experts in the tourism sector, such a trend could be attributed to the lack of accommodation facilities at famous tourism sites like Konark and Puri despite years of its significance in the tourism sector.