Tourist influx in Udayagiri and Khandagiri

Udayagiri and Khandagiri are being the finest specimens of cave art of Jainism in Odisha, a major chunk of total tourists visited the site (Pl.XCIVC). The intrinsic significance of the sites to form the tourist perspective is the availability of basic and tourism related-infrastructure viz., modes of transport i.e. airways, roadways and railways and good road network, accommodation facilities, way side amenities and maintenance and management of the built heritage. Fairs and festivals on the site also add to the growth of domestic tourism to the site. This may be a very short period tourist flow but it creates awareness among the local tourists about their rich cultural heritage. Thus, after Puri and Konark the heritage of Udayagiri and Khandagiri becomes one of the important tourist spots in coastal Odisha. After Sun Temple, Konark, Udayagiri and Khandagiri become the second highest number of tourists visited site in Odisha in case of build heritage. A comparative analysis is made on the basis of tourist flow for last seven years in different important monuments of Odisha particularly in the centrally protected ticketed monuments by Archaeological Survey of India. It is observed that around 16% people prefer visiting Udayagiri and Khandagiri next to Sun temple, Konark where 81% tourist visited the monument. The details of the last seven years tourist flow displayed the following tourist trend chart (see the end of chapter) both in histograms and pie chart model.