JOIN USBITE will be a platform for foreign travel agents to seek complete information related to tourism across India.
According to the proposal, top tour operators and travel agents from Asian and European countries will be invited by the State government to take part in BITE. The expo will have stalls of various tourism related counters like hotel operators, jungle lodges, tourism boards to name a few.
Nearly 30 per cent of the stalls will be reserved for promoting Karnataka tourism followed by another 30 per cent for three southern states, 30 per cent for rest of the Indian states and the remaining 10 per cent stalls for the SAARC countries.
“This expo will give the required boost to the already thriving state tourism,” said K Jothiramalingam, Principal Secretary (Dept of Tourism), according to whom the proposal is now with the ministry of tourism and the department is waiting for a green signal.
Most importantly, it’s not all about tourism in Karnataka. “We will try to promote the entire South India,” he added.
BITE, a first-of-its-kind initiative by a toursim department in India, is proposed to be a regular annual event from next year. During the three-day expo the foreign travel agents will have one-on-one meeting with all the owners of stalls. Close to 200 international tour operators will be invited to participate in BITE and they will be responsible to generate more foreign tourist traffic to India.
According to Jothiramalingam, the department will bear the expenses of the invites and the overall expenditure of this proposal is close to Rs 8 to Rs 10 crore.
“The idea to organise BITE is to promote Bangalore as the ‘Gate way to South India’. We are hopeful of getting positive response from this as the State has witnessed a rise in European and Scandinavian tourists in recent days. We have also identified China and Japan as two other places from where tourists might come to the State,” he said.