Trends and challenges for tourism in Odisha - A way forward

Tourism in Odisha is the emerging sector having huge potential for growth in this sector. But the state fails to figure in top 10 states in tourism of the country. Thus, it requires development of basic infrastructure dynamic policies to attract tourist and figure in the world tourism map. The objective of the paper is to analyse the growth and performance of tourism sector in Odisha and challenges to face over the period to achieve the desired goal. During the study, it was found that the foreign tourist growth rate during the period 2015 was 4.5 per cent, whereas the world average growth rate was 4.1 per cent. Of the total tourist of India, the share of Odisha is about 1 per cent only. During 2015–2016, the tourists arrived to the state were 11,853,088 against 10,862,048 in 2014–2015 with a growth rate of 9.12 per cent over previous year. This steady increase in tourist arrival is because of regular and extensive marketing. United Kingdom and USA were the major tourist generating markets for Odisha during the year 2015 with 8,921 and 7,847 tourists, respectively, out of the total tourist arrival of 66,971, followed by France, Germany, China, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia. West Bengal continued to be the major tourist-generating state for Odisha contributing 14 per cent of the total domestic tourists during 2015 followed by Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.