**Bhubaneswar:** Odisha Tourism apparently points at a promising prospect going by the data provided by Tourism Minister Ashok Chandra Panda in the Assembly in reply to a question by senior BJP legislator and Rourkela MLA Dilip Ray on Friday (March 3) during the ongoing Budget Session.
As per the statistics, there has been a 34.9% rise in the inflow of foreign tourists to the State since 2010.
The Tourism Minister in his written reply has stated that 76,361 foreign tourists visited Odisha in 2016 out of 88,90,000 foreign tourists who visited India in the same year.
While the figure of foreign tourists to Odisha in 2010 stood at 50,432 against 57,75,692 to India, in 2011 it went up to 60,722 against 63,09,222 foreign tourists to India.
Similarly in 2012, 64,719 foreign tourists visited Odisha while the figure in India was 65,77,745.
In 2013, 66,675 against the Indian figure 69,67,601; in 2014, 71,426 against 76,79,099 foreign tourists in India.
However, the inflow got slashed in 2015 as 66,971 foreign tourists visited Odisha against 80,27,133 to India.
Nevertheless, 2016 recorded 76,361 foreign tourists having visited Odisha while 88,90,000 visited India in the year.
So far the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) share from the tourism activities like trade hotel and restaurant is concerned, Odisha in 2010-11 earned 13.42%, 9.38 in 2011-12, 9.91 in 2012-13, 10.05 in 2013-14, 10.41 in 2014-15, 10.95 in 2015-16 while 10.99 in 2016-17, as per the data released to the House by the Tourism Department.
