- A quiz programme was conducted by RadioCity FM RJ Hardik, one of the most successful radio jockeys of Ahmedabad and Shivani duo for the media, tour operators to spread the tourism potential of Maharashtra, while Maharashtra’s native cuisine too was made available on the occasion.
NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, MARCH 9
In a bid to attract tourists to Maharashtra, the state tourism directorate on Monday organised a road show in Ahmedabad, the first in two years after COVID.
A quiz programme was conducted by RadioCity FM RJ Hardik, one of the most successful radio jockeys of Ahmedabad and Shivani duo for the media, tour operators to spread the tourism potential of Maharashtra, while Maharashtra’s native cuisine too was made available on the occasion.
Maharashtra as a state is one of the preferred tourist destinations due to its historical forts, pristine beaches, religious & heritage monuments, hill stations, wildlife, adventure sports, exotic cuisine, cultural festivals, transport connectivity and much more. With an aim to offer tremendous opportunities, garner opinions from prospective clients, define possible market potential by connecting with travel trade, Maharashtra Tourism has initiated a 9 city road show tour across the nation. As a part of this initiative, Maharashtra Tourism conducted its first road show in the glorious city of Ahmedabad. The event was organized on 7th March at Cama Hotel and was attended by the prominent names in the tour and travel fraternity in the city.
Supriya Karmarkar –Datar, Deputy Director, the Directorate of Tourism, Pune, Govt. of Maharashtra said, “We at Maharashtra Tourism are organizing a road show series with a core motive of promoting tourism industry in Maharashtra and to boost inter-state travel and tourism opportunities. We are happy that post the second Covid wave, hospitality sector in Maharashtra is witnessing a steady increase in recovery and travel companies too are seeing surge in the booking trends. It is astounding to have received such an overwhelming response from Ahmedabad towards Maharashtra Tourism road show and we wish to see the same response from other cities as well.”
Maharashtra has a huge potential in each and every segment of Tourism, which offers unlimited possibilities for tourists to explore. Crucial to this is the excellent connectivity options that Maharashtra state offers to the tourists. The state is well connected by roadways, railways, waterways and airways. Also, Maharashtra has a huge & varied accommodation capacity that caters to domestic and international tourists. As per travel insights from a popular online search engine, Mumbai, Shirdi, Lonavala, Mahableshwar- Panchgani, Ajanta & Ellora caves, Tarkarli, Tadoba National Park, Ganpatipule, Kamshet, Igatpuri, Nagpur, Nashik, Karjat, Alibaug, Chikhaldara, Bhandardara are popular travel destinations in Maharashtra. Maharashtra Tourism offers various policies to boost niche tourism segments in the state such as Agro Tourism policy, Beach Shack policy, Caravan policy and Adventure Tourism policy. These policies have been designed keeping in mind the changing travel patterns and consumer behaviour of tourists. Millennial’s are looking at more experience-based traveling like adventure tourism and community-based tourism.
Throwing light on various initiatives of Maharashtra Tourism, Supriya said, “We have come up with caravan tourism with the state government declaring several incentives and exemptions to operators. The caravan has been launched in collaboration with Motohom and are self-contained vehicles with bathrooms. Travellers may park the caravan at MTDC’s lodge premises, surrounding open areas, or eco-parks, according to the tourism website.
She elucidated on how and why the state has been recently recognised at World Trade Mart–London for its eco-village and tiger conservation projects, in addition to winning global responsible tourism awards, and the prestigious International Agro Tourism Award for having over 1,000 agri-tourism centres.
Owing to some of the most famous heritage destinations such as Ajanta and Ellora (Aurangabad) as well as the 720-kilometre coastline, Maharashtra attracts a very high share of domestic and foreign tourists who visit India. Cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur are well connected by roadways, railways, waterways, and airways with a road length of over 3,00,000 kilometres, and with a railroad density of 6,209.98 kilometres.
Maharashtra has the largest network of highways in India with 18 national highways that make up 17,757 kilometres. With 14 airports, including five international ones, it stands first among Indian states. It has the maximum number of UNESCO world heritage sites in India and, with around 63 forest reserves, the state attracts wildlife tourism enthusiasts also.
Under the Regional Tourism Development Scheme (RTDS), more than 250 destinations are being developed; Maharashtra Tourism has already spent approximately Rs 3,000 crore in the past five years for various projects.
Supriya added that over 1000 students have been trained to guide the tourists with the twin objective of helping the tourists and earn while you learn for the local youth
These road shows will give the entrepreneur large pool of potential leads, which are important for research to networking, brand expansion, sales negotiations and just general end-user sales.
