The government will showcase different aspects of India to various nations in order to better sell its tourism products.
According to officials, Indian embassies abroad are assisting with this project. The missions have been tasked with creating specialised marketing campaigns tailored to the profiles of tourists from each of 20 of India’s major source markets, including the US, UK, Thailand, Canada, China, Oman, and Russia.
For instance, India will promote itself to the French as a destination for culture and history, while Thailand may be sold on adventure travel and the Buddhist circuit. In the case of Russian tourists, it is necessary to look beyond Goa and Kerala in terms of travel options.
Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, along with officials from the Tourism Ministry, held a virtual meeting with Ambassadors and Tourism Officers from some of these missions, wherein specific marketing plans were presented.
“There is a realisation that the one-size-fits-all approach to promoting India as a tourist destination to foreigners does not yield great results. So, the idea is to market the tourist offerings in a more customised manner,” an official explained.
The Taj Mahal, voted among the New 7 Wonders of the World, is one of the main tourist destinations in India. Furthermore, the country has several other options that may also be of interest depending on each tourists’ preferences: The Holy City of Varanasi, The Red Fort, New Delhi, and many more.
By embracing India’s diversity, the initiative to tailor tourist products aims to appeal to various country profiles. The age and income variation of visitors from a given nation, their gender, their connectivity to that nation (and whether it is necessary to forge more direct ties), and other pertinent market trends and insights will all be taken into consideration when developing the new strategy.