BHUBANESWAR: The innovative festivals initiated by the Tourism and Culture department in the last few years seem to have paid off. The Odisha Tourism has bagged the ‘Best Tourism Festival Award’ at the prestigious International Tourism Conclave & Travel Award (ITCTA) function held recently at Shimla.General Manager, Orissa Tourism Development Corporation (OTDC), Manoranjan Pattnaik, and OTDC Chairman Jyotiskar Mohapatra received the award on behalf of Odisha Tourism from Himachal Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.Of the innovative festivals started by the Tourism department, the most successful ones have been the International Sand Art Festival, International Surfing Festival, International Odissi Festival and Samrachana __ Choreography Festival of Dance.In fact, the International Sand Art Festival and International Surfing Festival were organised for the first time in the State last year and saw a huge tourist turnout. In addition to this, the Guinness World Record of Odissi, organised by Odisha Tourism in December last, also helped in promotion of the International Odissi Festival.“All the festivals were conceived with an idea of highlighting the rich culture and heritage of the State. Besides, the Odisha Tourism has been innovative in its approach towards creation and styling of more such festivals to draw national and international visitors. The first-of-its-kind ‘jugalbandi’ of sand and chalk art, that was done by Sudarshan Patnaik and Tracy Stum, was also an initiative in this direction,” Pattnaik said.The ‘jugalbandi’ was organised in collaboration with US Consulate General, Hyderabad. He said publicity wise, aggressive marketing strategy of Odisha Tourism has been helpful.Events like Gotipua Dance Festival, Konark Festival, Dhauli-Kalinga Mahotsav, Mukteswar Dance Festival, Rajarani Music Festival and Toshali Crafts Fair too have been highly successful in drawing crowd.Ashok Tripathy, Secretary of the Tourism and Culture department, said the award comes as a recognition of the fact that the department has been successful in highlighting the State’s tourism potentials and cultural richness at national and international forums. “It’s indeed an achievement as no other State in the country has come up such a wide variety of festivals at regular intervals,” Tripathy said.Meanwhile, the OTDC has decided to write to the tourism development corporations of other States to strengthen reciprocal promotion of tourism and travel-related commercial activities between the regions. “During our stay in Shimla, we held preliminary discussions with several local tour operators and other participating tourism development corporations for collaborations,” Pattanik informed.In February this year, Odisha Tourism was declared as the ‘best emerging destination’ by a popular travel magazine, ‘Travel + Leisure India and South Asia’, basing on its annual reader survey. The magazine had taken into consideration that Odisha Tourism drew national and international attention by blending tourism with culture.
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