“We are organising Madhya Pradesh Travel Mart, which is going to be held in October this year.” – Padole
Madhya Pradesh, the incredible heart of India, as its tourism slogan proclaims, has come a long way as a tourist destination thanks to the hard work that the state has put in place over the years. The state was in a lot of limelight recently as the only home of Cheetah in the country when the Government of India decided house them at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Talking on the side lines of the recently concluded SATTE 2023, Yuvraj Padole, Deputy Director – Events & Marketing, Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board, highlighted a slew of new initiatives, activities and tourism promotion festivals that the state government has undertaken in order to attract more and more visitors to the state.
Padole said, “Madhya Pradesh is a versatile state. We are the heart of incredible India. We are the tiger state of India, the leopard state of India, and more. So there are so many unique things in our state. And now the latest is cheetah. Thanks to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has given this gift to the wildlife tourism of Madhya Pradesh. We are already the number one state in wildlife tourism. But with this, Madhya Pradesh is now stronger than before in wildlife tourism products and offerings.” Besides wildlife, the Deputy Director also pointed that the state is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. “And now two more sites, Orchha and Mandu, have been shortlisted for inclusion in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. So in future we may have two more UNESCO World heritage sites in the state,” he added.
The state tourism is also curating and developing tourism promotion events and festivals that it is leveraging to promote state tourism profile. “Recently we started Gandhisagar Floating Festival at Gandhisagar Dam on river Chambal in Mandsaur district of the state. We already have Mandu and Orchha festivals and Jal Mahotsav, which is on Indirasagar near Indore. We are promoting tourism using huge water bodies available in the state,” he added.
Mother Pradesh is now also becoming a hub for filmmaking. “With a very clear and filmmakers-friendly film tourism policy, more and more filmmakers are now attracted to Madhya Pradesh to do their projects. We are offering good subsidy, tax holidays and discounts to attract them to come to the state and shoot films in its beautiful locations,” informed Padole.
Besides film tourism, there are some other fronts where Madhya Pradesh has been active like responsible tourism, sustainable tourism and rural tourism. “Rural tourism is a whole tourism product which has been developed with the help of homestays, Gram-stays and farm-stays and now tourists are coming to Madhya Pradesh to visit these different types of tourism products. They visit the villages, go and stay there; they involved themselves in the different type of activities with the villagers and learn a lot of things. So, this kind of tourism is becoming very popular in the state day by day. This also includes the local community involvement, which means the skill development and providing empowerment to the local communities, especially to the women. This leads to the sustainability of the tourism products. We firmly believe that this is the future of tourism in the state. We are known for our culture and these kinds of things which make us different from other places and other countries. Our music, food, people, their lifestyle, hospitality, everything is there and people are coming to the state enjoy these things,” said Padole.
Furthermore, keeping in view that this is a year of ‘Visit India’ (2023), India’s Presidency of G20 and recently concluded Pravasi Bhartiya, the state is also organising events such as conferences and seminars, inviting subject specialists and promoting tourism and educating people too. “We are organising Madhya Pradesh Travel Mart, which is going to be held in October this year. We are inviting international buyers to the mart and providing a platform to the suppliers, to the people who have invested in MP, such as hoteliers, transport operators, tour operators and travel agents to promote their products to buyers from domestic and international market.”
