The Bengal government will conduct a yearlong survey to gather detailed data about domestic and international tourists in key destinations across districts.

The initiative for the first time in recent years will help draw up plans to promote tourist destinations and develop infrastructure in these sites.

“An agency will be engaged for the survey to continue for a year. The agency will gather data from various sources like hotels and other accommodations and places from where travel tickets are bought. In due course, data would be collated and a comprehensive report on tourists prepared,” said an official of the tourism department.

As of now, the only data available at the government level is from the Union tourism ministry.

It shows that in 2021, around 2.43 crore domestic tourists visited Bengal, around 3.6 per cent of the total domestic tourists. In the same year, 34,000 foreign tourists had come to Bengal, 3.3 per cent of those who came to India.

“More specific district or destination level data is not available.... If the state comes up with such data, it will help the sector in many ways,” said Samrat Sanyal, general secretary of the Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network, referring to how it could help them tap into the tourism potential from the G20 business meets in Siliguri and Darjeeling next month, for instance.

Sources at the state tourism department said the survey would be carried out in two phases.

In the first phase, it would be held in different districts of the state, including Calcutta.

“In the second phase, a tentative list of 134 tourist destinations of these districts has been prepared where the survey will be done. Surveys will be done at hotels and other accommodation units, transit points and popular sites,” said a source.

The department also wants information like type and place of stay, purpose of visit (leisure or non-leisure), the occupancy rate of hotels, and employment generated in the sector at a destination.

“This information would give us an idea of the requirements, including infrastructure, of a specific place,” said an official.