Bhubaneswar, Aug. 24: The state government today launched a website for the Odisha Travel Bazaar to brand the event nationally and abroad.

The event, to be hosted along the lines of The Great Indian Travel Bazaar, Jaipur, will act as a platform to bring together tour operators from across the globe alongside the local ones, stakeholders and policy-makers under one roof to promote the state's tourist destinations.

The website, www.odishatravelbazar.com, will have participation details, aims and objectives of the event, programme schedules and other related information related to Odisha Tourism to attract investment opportunities.

The tourism department will organise the event from October 15 to 17 here in association with the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

"The Odisha Tourism's basic objective is to create adequate infrastructure within the state, attract more tourists and lengthen their stay in Odisha and promote and market its products in the source markets as a preferred destinations," said tourism minister Ashok Panda, while launching the website.

Along with it, the logo for the event was also launched.

About 40 foreign tour operators, 20 inbound operators, 10 domestic tour operators and select airline operators are likely to take part in the event.

This is an exclusive B2B event of hosted buyers and sellers where 56 stakeholders from the state are taking part in the event as sellers.

"The Odisha Tourism is redefining its strategies to promote its destinations by inviting more tour operators, travel agents, travel writers through its hospitality programmes to educate them about the state and promote it," he said.

One road show was organised in New Delhi on August 22 to promote this event nationally. One more such road show will be held in Mumbai.

The aim would be to promote the lesser-known locations of the state. "We are trying to build a travel trail in various destinations, so that tourists have a lot of things to look forward to," said tourism director Nitin Jawale.

He said the government was taking initiatives to make the state a 365-day tourist destination - both for foreign nationals and Indian tourists.