Three-day annual tourism fair begins

INDORE: The three-day annual tourism fare began here on Friday. This is the fifth annual tourism fair, organised by India International Travel Exhibition. The fair has 55 stalls installed including three from East Asian countries, including Malaysia, Thailand and Dubai.
Director of India International Travel Exhibition, Anurag Gupta said there is 10 to 12 per cent increase in number of stalls and businesses from the region. The fair is being well received by the Indoreans. A large number of people, especially the youngsters are visiting the fair. The foreign stalls are a big draw.
Last year around 7.5 lakh tourists from India visited the East Asian countries, around 70,000 people from these countries visited India. Regional manager of MP Tourism, Vivek Mathur said of late there has been a trend among Indians to visit East Asian countries, as these countries are well connected and the travel is cheaper. On the other hand domestic tourism is affected by the poor connectivity. To deal with this state tourism board is planning to offer additional facilities like hotel accommodation, pick up, site seeing, etc. Officials are also banking on commencement of new intra-state air facility as they believe that it will boost tourism in state. At the same time in the wake of increasing trend of weekend tourism the department is also planning to launch caravan facility for the tourists. "Tourism board is also developing resorts at various places to attract the weekend tourists. Some of the resorts have already come up at Mandu and near by places of Indore," he noted.