This was stated by Manabendra Mukherjee, West Bengal's minister-in-charge for tourism, textiles, micro & small-scale enterprises, on Saturday.

He was speaking at an interactive session organised by CII, Eastern Region, in association with the state department of tourism to focus on promoting tourism in the state.

Mr Mukherjee added that in the last two years, the budget allocation for publicity of Bengal's tourism had increased 10-fold and the government is keen to double that in the coming days. According to him, though the state received about 11 lakh foreign tourists and 165 lakhs domestic travellers in 2007-08, there is still a lot of further scope.

While the state tourism department intends to develop Jharkhali in Sunderbans and Mandarmoni in the Digha-Shankarpur stretch as prime spots for destination tourism, a Rs 25 crore project will start shortly in Murshidabad around Lalbagh, the capital of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dullah, to develop it as another site for destination heritage tourism. Work for tourism development will also start shortly in Birbhum where a tourism circuit will be developed around Shantiniketan.

Ms Nandita Chatterjee, principal secretary, state department of tourism, added that a policy decision had been taken that the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation Ltd along with the private sector would set up SPVs (special purpose vehicles) for land banks after which the third party development partners would be urged to develop infrastructure in tourism.

Mr Ravi Todi, Chairman, West Bengal State Council, CII (Eastern Region), said that to tap tourism potential in Bengal, the approach has to be two-pronged - targeting both domestic as well as international tourists. He identified some key issue sectors like infrastructure, marketing and promotion and urged the necessity to upgrade international air connectivity.