With an aim to promote the state beyond Wildlife and Heritage, Madhya Pradesh Tourism is now looking to open up new state-of-the-art convention centres to attract MICE travellers. Presently, the state has four international standard convention centres with two in Indore and one each in Orchha and Bhopal.
Speaking about the development in the MICE segment, Hari Ranjan Rao, Tourism Commissioner and Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh said, “Quality convention centres are required for MICE segment to flourish. We are trying to encourage private players to build convention centres at various destinations in the state. We are also offering attractive subsidies to private players. We currently have four good world-class convention centres and we are developing a convention centre in Jabalpur, we have already offered land near airport to a local player and in two to three years it will be up. In Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation is building a convention centre and it will be ready in two years. In Bhopal, we have a Nawab period building called Minto Hall, we will restore this heritage property into a convention centre. It will be a 1200 seater heritage convention centre and will be ready by June. We are also aggressively marketing Madhya Pradesh as a MICE destination in all our roadshows.”
Madhya Pradesh recently organised the fourth edition of MP Travel Mart at Hotel Lake View Ashok in Bhopal to further boost tourism in the state. “To promote the state in the global market, we organise the MP Travel Mart. We will also participate aggressively in all the trade shows and travel marts. We will be organising exclusive roadshows in Paris and USA. This is the first time we will be organising a four city road show in USA. After ITB Berlin, we will organise road shows in Europe.”
To further diversify the products in the state, MP Tourism had introduced a mega festival,’ Jal Mahotsav’, which has been successful in its earlier two editions. Now Madhya Pradesh has opened up 16 large waterbodies for tourism purpose. “We have large water bodies and backwaters in the state. We want to introduce cruising, house boats, speed boats and many water sport activities by partnering with private players. Government has appointed the tourism department to authorise licences. Already 30 players have applied for licences and we have given consent. These private players can also use the government infrastructures such as boat club and jetty without developing their own infra. Traditionally we have been known as a tiger state and we get travellers for wildlife. But after wildlife and heritage we wanted to create some new products. Jal Mahotsav adds a third dimension to our state.”
Madhya Pradesh is also focusing to promote itself as a standalone destination to the international markets. Currently the state is viewed as an ‘add-on’ destination, which is one of the challenges. Rao added, “On international markets we are facing a challenge that Madhya Pradesh is not perceived as a standalone destination. We are not the port of embarkation and we don’t have an international airport. Madhya Pradesh gets added into the itinerary of international travellers as an add-on. With roadshows we want to showcase all our products and attract travellers to come exclusively to Madhya Pradesh. States like Kerala have been successful in becoming a standalone destination.”
