Odisha Govt Plans ‘Road Trips’ To Promote Tourism Post COVID-19

DESTINATION ODISHA: Delegates of Odisha Tourism Bazaar 2019 take part in a special heritage walk in Old Town, Bhubaneswar, on Saturday. OB Photograph

Bhubaneswar: In a bid to boost the tourism potential post COVID-19, the Tourism department has come up with a campaign to promote road trips across the state for the tourists from neighbouring states.

The campaign called “Road Trip To and Through Odisha” will be launched after the situation improves by October this year. It will focus on the states like West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Andhra Pradesh, TOI reported tourism secretary Vishal Dev as saying.

As per the plan, tourists from Ranchi, Kolkata, Raipur, Visakhapatnam, Bilaspur, Jamshedpur, and Bilaspur will be invited for road trips to Odisha. The department will also offer some attractive packages for these travellers.

“Assuming that the COVID situation improves in next few weeks, the flights and trains to Odisha may resume. But tourists may hesitate to take air and rail travels anytime soon. So we conceptualised the road trip to capture the domestic tourist market of our neighbouring states,” Vishal Dev said.

The department will arrange accommodation and sightseeing inside Odisha for those travelling on road to the state. At present, some hotels are offering road trips in a restricted manner.

Besides, there is a plan to do virtual road shows by roping in tour operators from neighbouring states.