For the people who have the itch to travel but lack the information about the places they want to go, can get nearly all the details thanks to the three-day Holiday Expo which commenced at the Swarna Bharati indoor stadium here on Friday.
Tourism departments of ten States have put up their stalls and in addition nearly 10 major travel agencies and a couple of theme parks are present. There is one stall selling software for the travel agencies.
The stalls are distributing attractive information brochures with details of their respective State, the tourist spots, facilities available, tariff of the hotels run by the tourism corporation, package tours if any, and the officials present were answering questions on additional information.
In some cases the tariff and travel charges were more but a visitor would get a good idea about the tourist spots and could plan his or her own travel and stay.
State tourism corporations of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Puducherry, Karnataka, Assam, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have put up their stalls. Sri Lanka Holiday, SOTC, Cox and Kings, Spiceland Holidays, Welfare Holiday World, a private travel agency from Kerala, Ramoji Film City, Hailand and others were among the participants.
This is the fourth consecutive year the show is being held in the city and this year more States and agencies were participating, said vice-president of Holiday Expo Dilip Biswas. People can get all details at one place and the officials from each State were there to help them, he said.
With spending capacity of the Indians on the rise, tourism had also increased as people started visiting other States and Holiday Expo was holding exhibitions in the medium sized cities which emerged as the fastest growing travel and tourism segments.
From the States in which the tourism industry and machinery were well established, to the States that have been formed a few years ago or making a bid to attract tourists to the beautiful and enchanting tourist spots, the exhibition has all. Bihar has stressed a lot on the Buddhist spots and Chattisgarh is exposing the enchanting water falls, which are just around 300 km from here. A big stall is exhibiting AP's tourist spots, including the boat ride in the Godavari to the Paapikondalu.
The Gujarat Tourism, which was the partner State of the exhibition, put up a big stall and a group of people were performing Daandiya dance, to suit the ongoing Navaratri festival.
There was information about cruise lines, foreign tour packages, health centres, special interest travel, and all aspects
