Guwahati to host international mart to promote NE tourism

Announcing this here today, Tourism Minister K Chiranjeevi said that this will be the first-ever international tourism event to be organised in the northeastern region and is also the first one to promote a specific region.

"It will bring together the tourism business fraternity and entrepreneurs from the eight northeastern states and West Bengal. The event has been planned and scheduled to facilitate interaction between buyers, sellers, media, government agencies and others," Chiranjeevi told reporters.

He said around 100 delegates including tourism ministers, tourism secretaries, tour operators, hoteliers and media representatives from Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Combodia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the UK, the US and Vietnam will attend the mart.

He said the three-day event will include presentations, cultural evenings and press meets with media from India and overseas and will see performances of many celebrity artistes from the region. One-to-one meetings with foreign delegates will also be organised during the event.

Chiranjeevi said post-mart familiarisation tours to states of the region have been arranged by various states for overseas delegates from January 21 to 28 to create awareness about the rich and varied tourism potential of the north eastern region.

Among the states that will participate in the three-day event include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim, besides West Bengal, which are endowed with diverse tourist attractions.

Among some of the artistes who will give cultural performances during the show include Lou Majaw from Meghalaya, Rubin from Manipur, Mami Varte from Mizoram and Debojit Saha, Dikshu, Priyanka Bharali, Manas Robin, Joy Chakravarty, Simanta Shekhor, Mousam Gogoi and Papori Sharma from Assam.