Sikkim tour boost plan

TT, 16 Mar 2019, Siliguri: Stakeholders of tourism industry in north Bengal have drawn up a plan to popularise Sikkim among citizens of Bangladesh.

Next week, they will take a team of media people from Bangladesh on a six-day tour of Sikkim to inform them about destinations.

A few months ago, the central government had decided to relax stringent rules for Bangladeshis to visit Sikkim.

Earlier, they needed to obtain permission from the Union home ministry in Delhi but now they can visit the state with a permit issued by the Indian visa application centres in Bangladesh and at Rangpo, the entry point to Sikkim.

"The highest number of foreign tourists we get in this region are from Bangladesh. But so far, they had to limit their itinerary to Darjeeling and the Dooars and could not visit Sikkim due to strict rules. Now that the process has been made easy, we feel the inflow of tourists from the neighbouring country to Sikkim will go up," said Samrat Sanyal, the general secretary of the Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network.

That is why they have planned to bring in media people from the neighbouring nation to Sikkim. "Through the trip, they can learn more about the state and after returning to their country, they can apprise people of the new destination which they can visit now, along with Darjeeling," added Sanyal. The team would comprise eight members, who would reach Siliguri from Dhaka, Rajshahi and Panchagarh on March 19.