“The app will be launched within the month of February,” informed principal secretary, state tourism principal secretary, Nandini Chakravorty.
(Representational Image: iStock)
Tourists in West Bengal, very soon, will not have to wait long for hiring cabs or hunt to get the choicest hotel accommodation. The West Bengal Tourism Department is working on plans to develop an endto- end ‘tourism app’ for the inbound tourists of the state. The tourism department is putting its efforts to launch the app by next month.
“The app will be launched within the month of February,” informed principal secretary, state tourism principal secretary, Nandini Chakravorty. “If a tourist books room in a good hotel but doesn’t get a taxi, he will have a bad experience and might not come back again. The app, thus, will have an end-to-end facility for tourist on the lines of circuit tourism,” she added.
According to the principal secretary, West Bengal has witnessed an increase in foreign tourist arrival (FTA) in the last few years. “The FTA of the state, which was 12.19 lakhs in 2012 has increased to 16.17 lakhs in the year 2018. The travel tourism sector of the state, thus, has witnessed an increase of around 33 per cent.
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This apart there has been a substantial growth in the aircraft movement or aircraft travel report. According to the data given by the Airport Authority of India, if compared to the year 2012-13, there has been an increase of 67.86 per cent in international airlines in the year 2018-19. In domestic airlines, a growth of 74.42 per cent has been witnessed while the figure for international plus domestic airlines has been 73.10 per cent,” informed Ms Chakravorty.
The department is to hold a travel mart, ‘Destination East’ jointly with the Confederation of Indian Industry from 13 to 19 January at Biswa Bangla Convention Centre. The conclave had witnessed participation of 681 foreign buyers last year. As informed by the principal secretary, this year, the number is expected to increase by 100 or more with participants from around 40 countries. The department is focussing on the South- East Asian and East European countries to attract tourists for inbound traffic in the state.
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