Calcuttans turned up in droves to check out holiday destinations at home and abroad this weekend at Tourist Spot, a tourism fair organised at Netaji Indoor Stadium by the department of tourism of the West Bengal government and Anandabazar Patrika.

The three-day fair, which concluded on Sunday, also saw an impressive number of spot bookings. The total footfall was over 21,000, an increase of at least 2,500 from last year, which was the inaugural year.

Southeast Asia remained a big draw, but Sri Lanka was the surprise find of Tourist Spot 2009. “There were a good number of bookings for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, as always. There were some enquiries and bookings for Nepal and Bangladesh too,” said Pranabesh Sarkar, the secretary of the Travel Agent and Hotelier Association. Cox & Kings bagged 20 bookings for southeast Asia.

Our southern neighbour notched up big numbers too. “We got around 65 bookings for Sri Lanka,” said Tarakeshwar Singh of Jet Setters. Shubhro Mukherjee of makemytrip.com agreed that Sri Lanka was a hot destination.

“We got about 42 bookings for international tours, of which 15 were for southeast Asia and the rest for Sri Lanka. The reason is that Sri Lanka tours are even cheaper than southeast Asia,” he said.

At SOTC, Sri Lanka enjoyed second place with 22 bookings, while there were 55 takers for European packages.

Many were interested in Egypt too. Jet Setters got 80 bookings for Egypt while 10 signed up with Cox & Kings. Finland, which debuted in eastern India with Tourist Spot 2009, bagged eight bookings.

Indian holidays continued to be in demand too. The tourism boards of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh did good business. “We got 1,12,000 bookings, mainly for Varanasi, Agra, Allahabad, Hardwar and Mathura. Southeast Asia may offer a taste of abroad at an affordable rate, but you can’t get the Taj there or enjoy places steeped in our history ,” said Ramesh Chandra Pradhan of UP Tours, Calcutta.

Many visitors also booked holidays in the Dooars, the Northeast, Garhwal, Goa, Sikkim and Kashmir.

“This is a very nice fair. I love travelling and Tourist Spot helped me gather information on all the places I’d like to visit,” said visitor Sangeeta Mullick on Sunday. Chandana Mukherjee, another visitor, said she and her family were looking for Malaysia packages.

“Those who visit Tourist Spot truly enjoy travelling and are open to interaction. They don’t just pick up brochures and leave,” said Samik Bhattacharya of Travel Agents Association of Bengal.

Kamal Kishore Gupta of the Association of Tourism Service Providers of Bengal agreed. “All our members are very happy with the response they got,” he said.

Thirty lucky draw winners received free tickets to London, handed out by actors Rishi Kaushik and Rituparna Sengupta.