bhubaneswar taking a cue from rajasthan the tourism department has decided to organise odisha travel bazaar here in october to market the states tourism destinations before tour operators from the country and abroad department sources said the businesstobusiness event will continue for three days from october 12 the government expects the footfall of at least 200 delegates including tour operators and hoteliers from the country and overseas nations during the proposed maiden programme we will organise odisha travel bazaar in collaboration with federation of indian chambers of commerce industry ficci we will give a scope to tour operators of our state to showcase our tourism potential to buyers tour operators from other states and abroad the ficci already conducted great indian travel bazaar in rajasthan with great success tourism deputy director utpal kumar pati told toi sources said the department would spend nearly rs 15 crore on the event though the state government had planned to organise the event last year it could not be materialized tour operators in the state see hope to boost tourism through the b2b marketing event such programme will obviously help us market our products it will be great if ficci brings quality buyers from abroad it will not help if nonreputed international tour operators come participate and leave said yugabrata kar secretary of odisha tour operators association at present the tourism department is basking in glory after offering grand hospitality to foreign athletes and delegates who came here to participate in the asian athletics championship we have asked tour operators of our state to showcase unexplored destinations before the visitors another tourism official said the odisha tourism drew flak for the drop in the number of foreign tourists to the state in 2015 despite spending huge funds in infrastructure development and promotional campaigns in the runup to nabakalebara festival in 2015 there was a fall of 4455 foreign tourists to the state as compared to 2014 while a total of 71 426 foreign tourists visited the state in 2014 their footfall in the state came down to 66971 in 2015 however the department said inflow of foreigners increased in 2016 total 76361 foreigners toured the state last year we continue to witness rising trend in the inflow of domestic tourists while 11786117 domestic tourists visited odisha in 2015 the number increased to 12842899 last year the official added countries like the uk and the us send a large share of tourists to odisha followed by germany france and the netherlands official sources said