Tourism ministers and officials from the five countries on the rim of the Bay of Bengal ended a two-day conference in Calcutta on Saturday with a call to promote the region as a viable tourist destination in its own right.

The tourism specialists called on the governments of Bangladesh, India, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand, a grouping known as Bimstec, to contribute to this process.

Laxmi Puri, who managed the deliberations for the two days, talked said: "The Bimstec component of the Asian highway can become the basis of a viable new tourism product for joint marketing," and added that "it is regrettable that we do not have direct shipping links among all Bimstec countries".

The conference adopted an action plan to attract tourists from other regions, and to promote inter-regional tourism within the five country grouping.

The action plan recommends: