AP Tourism to invest Rs 5cr in Visakhapatnam district

The Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation Limited (APTDC) is investing close to Rs 5 crore on providing additional accommodation facilities at Visakhapatnam, Rushikonda beach and Araku Valley.

Speaking to Business Standard, P G S Sai, divisional manager of APTDC, said: "The influx of tourist arrivals to Visakhapatnam, Rushikonda beach and Araku Valley has been on a rise. Despite increasing the number of rooms and cottages to 200, which was only 140 a year ago, we are finding it difficult to meet the increasing demand during the festive seasons and summer vacations. Keeping the increasing demand in mind, the corporation has decided to add another 140 cottages and rooms to the existing ones."

"The corporation is constructing 24 cottages at Ananthagiri Hill resort at an investment of Rs 1.5 crore. The cottages will be ready by April 2005. In addition to this, we are also constructing 24 rooms at the Rushikonda beach at a cost of Rs 1.4 crore, besides adding another 60 rooms at Araku Valley at an investment of Rs 2 crore. These new rooms will be ready by next year," he added.

Sai said that the corporation, in a bid to attract more tourists from other states, has appointed marketing executives and agents in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Bangalore. "The appointment of marketing executives and agents is showing good results and the tourist arrivals from other states have increased significantly in recent days," he said.

"Nearly 1.84 lakh tourists visited the Burra caves between April and November last fiscal, as compared to 2.26 lakh tourists in the same period this fiscal," he added.

"With the increase in tourist arrivals, our revenues too have gone up by 24 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal. Our earnings touched Rs 3.36 crore in the first half of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 2.71 crore in last fiscal's corresponding period, representing a growth of 24 per cent. Going by the influx of tourist arrivals, we expect our revenues to cross the Rs 8-crore mark, as compared to Rs 6.45 crore last fiscal," Sai said.

The tourism corporation, at present, has 14 hi-tech buses to organise conducted tours on a regular basis. It plans to bring in 8-10 more buses temporarily from the Vijayawada division to meet the demand during the Visakha Utsav that is scheduled to be held from January 14 to 16.