New Delhi, April 24 2009: THE GOVERNOR of Orissa Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare today inaugurated the three-day the SATTE 2009- Asia's largest travel fair at Pragati Maidan here today in the presence of many distinguished personalities in the field of tourism.

This was the 16th edition of annual SATTE Buyer-Seller Meet in New Delhi.The programme of the three-day fair started since yesterday with holding the Indian Tourism Conclave during the day and a SATTE Awards Night at Le Meridien here.

More than a thousand buyers from 31 countries lined up to buy and sell tourism products at Asia's largest travel fair today.

Tourism Boards from 16 countries showcased their products to woo the outbound Indian traveller.

'SATTE' chief coordinator Navin Berry said that the two-day tourism mart on April 24-25 will see 20 per cent increase in overseas buyers this year.

On the seller side, this year's SATTE featured over 350 seller organizations, representing diverse tourism products and services among them.

The seller base comprised 26 State Governments and 16 countries.

Ministry of Tourism had been paying a special attention towards the development of tourism in the North Eastern Region by providing free stalls for the region in the Travel Fair.

Manipur Tourism had been taking part in the Fair since 2007 regularly.

Tourism promotional video films on Manipur were screened in the Manipur Stall along with distribution of tourism leaflets, to attract the tourists.

Talking about the Manipur Tourism, Shri Hawaibam Deleep Singh IAS, Director of Tourism said that the whole effort was to rekindle the tourism industry of Manipur which required a multi-pronged strategy.

He pointed out the need for augmenting tourism related infrastructure particularly accommodations like hotel, tourist lodges, Yatri Niwas etc.

He also emphasized the need for repackaging of Manipur profile in all forms of media so that Manipur was portrayed favourably to make it a best tourist destination in the country.

"We must removed the fear attached to the name of Manipur with effective and professional approach in media management", he added.

The Manipur Tourism Director also underlined, "In order to bring large number of tourists into Manipur, we must encourage tour operators so that they tie-up with other tour operators for managing tourists from other States and countries." He said that Manipur Tourism Festival 2009 and best of Asia Expo in Imphal was recently organised with the above mentioned objectives.

Participation of Manipur Tourism in SATTE was also very important for establishment of new links and networks of tourism in order to develop tourism industry in Manipur.

H Elina Sharma of Seven Sisters Holidays which was a component of Manipur Tourism in the Fair said, "We are organizing tour packages within Manipur and whole of North East.

We are into the business since 1997 and are only tour operator in Manipur recognised by the Department of Tourism, Government of Manipur.

Among the packages, the 'Best Seller Package' of whole North East for 22 days has become favourite package of the tourists.

We have just launched this package recently and have a booking for the next one year for 30 tourists every month from Maharashtra".

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