If we talk about the Madhya Pradesh state of India, then what are the efforts that can be made to increase tourism here?
Answers
Answer:
Marketing efforts till now were largely based on the whole state. We are now focusing more on specific locations and itineraries, that is one. Our next ad campaign will be basically itineraries and location based, not the whole state. Second we are creating more experiences, which is basically village tourism, homestays, doing more offbeat locations which have not been seen or covered giving tourists more experiences.
Then we are doing festivals like the Orchha festival, a three-day event from 6 to 8 March. We've just done a Mandu festival. Then, we also did a Hanuwantiya festival.
There are lot of national parks and heritage sites to attract tourists…
Yes, Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Pench, are among the famous parks and there are these tourist groups, brought in by the big tour operators. Taj and Oberoi have properties in these national parks. There are other chains.
Among the traditional things in Madhya Pardesh are heritage sites. Heritage is mostly northern part of the state. So you have Gwalior, Orchha, Khajuraho, Chanderi, a bit in Mandu and some sites around Bhopal like Sanchi, Bhimbetka and Bhopal. Then there is the religious circuit which includes Ujjain, Mahakal then the wildlife which is largely the eastern part of the state.
To get international tourists, you have to plan at least a year in advance. If you're coming from US or Europe, you need to plan and book in advance. We have started packaging these locations and we bought in companies to do them. So now it's in the interest of these companies to also market the destinations.
For example, for Orchha we are getting a lot of destination management companies and tour operators and the big companies that do foreign tourists from Delhi and NCR to go there and be there for three days, They get an idea of the place then they can start selling it to foreign tourists. Same is for Mandu, Hanuwantiya, Chhindwara also. In four or five years these products will stabilize and then people will come. That’s the idea.
Madhya Pradesh is not a very costly destination. So, be it MP state Tourism Development Corporation or in the private sector properties, its not very expensive compared to other destinations. It's mid to lower middle-income state and eating out, travelling etc is quite affordable.So, we are working on it, we have a lot of heritage places and such properties with us also. We are marketing them.
The last policy was in 2016 and revised in 2019. We have increased the amount of subsidy for projects, we have increased the number of projects,
We have given extra benefits for branded hotels chains. There are benefits comparable to among the best in the country. And for film tourism, it has two parts. One is the traditional incentive subsidy given and the second part is if you are using local talent, you're promoting the state, then you get added benefits.
Young travelers are motivated a lot by what they see on social media.We are on all the platforms. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we are there on all the platforms. There are promotional campaigns also and organically also, there's a lot of activity on our platforms.
Domestic tourism will definitely go up a lot. And international, once we sort out our connectivity issues, will also increase. There is a lot of interest and companies are also looking at it. Besides lot of jobs will also be created. For every dollar invested tourism creates among the highest number of jobs. Our target is to create around five lakh jobs in the next five years in tourism alone.