At a recent press conference, Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India announced the second edition of the Ministry of Tourism’s (MoT) travel event, International Tourism Mart (ITM). The Mart will be held on 17 and 18 October in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. “With ITM, we want to create a platform for tourism stakeholders from North East India to showcase the region as a tourist destination and promote their products to domestic and international buyers.”
The first edition of ITM, which was held in Guwahati, Assam in January this year, enjoyed participation of travel trade delegates from 23 countries. Elaborating further, Dewan said, “This year we expect to witness participation of 150 international buyers from 25 countries. The international participants will include tourism boards as well as travel trade members from both ASEAN and SAARC countries.” Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram as well as West Bengal Tourism will be part of the Mart and exhibit its tourism products at the two-day event.
The event will be held right after the Shillong Festival, ‘Abode in the Clouds’, which will be held on 4 and 5 October, 2013 and will precede the Tawang festival which will be held on 17-21 October 2013. “Through these festivals, we want to showcase the beauty of North East India and also reach out to people within India to travel and see their own country. Tawang is a fairly new destination and we are at a very nascent stage of promoting it to the world. We expect close to 14,000 tourist arrivals to Tawang during the peak season. To further leverage tourist arrivals MoT has decided to organise a post event FAM for international as well as local tour operators to have a better understanding of the destination,” Dewan informed. The Government hopes that the five-day tourism festival will take Tawang a notch higher in the tourism map of the world.
Commenting on choosing Tawang as the preferred destination, he stated, “Tawang is a famous tourist destination in Arunachal Pradesh. It is strategically located for any traveller who wants to explore neighbouring countries as well. Tawang shares boundaries with Tibet in the North, Bhutan in South West and is rimmed by the Sela Range of West Kameng.”
Speaking about connectivity to the destination and accommodation Dewan informed, “Tawang is a 55 minute helicopter ride from Guwahati. We are looking for people who love travelling and love the adrenaline rush. We are planning to have a private chopper service provider on board specially for the event. We will also have campsite accommodations and home stays in addition to a hotel with a huge inventory that will open soon in Tawang.”
