India launched the second phase of its Incredible India! campaign at World Travel Market on Monday with the aim of boosting international arrivals by 12% a year until 2016.
The new ‘Find what you seek’ campaign will aim to tell consumers that they will find whatever they are looking for from a holiday in India.
Joint secretary of the Ministry of Tourism Anand Kumar said: “The earlier Incredible India! campaign created an awareness of the destinations and products in India, but this new phase will focus more on the customer and what they want.
“We want to show them that India offers something for everyone, whether it be yoga, beach, mountains, wildlife, temples, shopping, food – we have it all.”
Particular focus will be put on India’s lesser-known but fast-growing offerings.
“Everyone knows about our world heritage sites, our festivals and our elephants and tigers, but we want them to also know about our yoga, our spa and our Ayurveda medicine – wellness tours is a massive growth area for us, up 20% on last year.”
The campaign will manifest itself in international television advertising and a huge print and electronic media campaign starting next month (December).
In the UK, India is planning a trade roadshow to conduct ‘New India’ seminars. As well as visiting London, Birmingham and Manchester, it also aims to visit agents in up to 20 smaller towns.
The UK is currently India’s second-largest market, sending 800,000 visitors a year, with tourism bosses expecting UK arrivals to grow at the same overall targeted rate of 12% a year. Currently, international and UK arrivals are growing at 9% annually.
India welcomed 6.29 million international arrivals in 2011 but hopes the new ‘Find what you seek’ campaign will boost India’s share of the world tourism market from 0.64% to 1% in the next three years. By 2019, it is expected that India will be the largest employer in the tourism sector.
India’s recently appointed tourism minister Dr K Chiranjeevi said: “The UK is so important to India. It has bilateral relations from our ancestors and culture and infrastructure like our rail connectivity directly because the British ruled there for more than 200 years. UK visitors feel very comfortable in India and now we want to make sure they know that whoever they are, they will find something and somewhere to suit them.”
A former international Bollywood superstar, Dr KChiranjeevi said: “I have shot films all over the world and in the Alps you just have mountains, in Africa just dry plains, but in India, we have absolutely everything.”
The minister also said he was currently lobbying for hotel tariffs and tourism taxes to be reduced to make India better value.