TOURISM - Explore India in the millennium year

Where will the world traveller spend his holidays during the dawn of the 21st century ? - we invite him to visit and explore India - a subcontinent larger than Europe with a variety of cultures, cuisines, architectural wonders, out-door activities, wild life, shopping and above all, a warm believe that a "Guest is like a God".
To improve foreign tourist arrivals steps have to be taken both outside and inside the country. Outside the country, the primary objectives can be briefly stated as creating a proper image of India, giving information about India to those who are interested and trying to reach out those who are not interested but who can be made interested.
Various agencies are involved in creating an image about Indian- Indian Missions abroad, various Public Sector Undertaking under different Ministries having offices abroad, cultural activities taken up by different Ministries, trade promotion activities by the India Trade promotion organisation and the government of India tourist offices abroad. We are now trying to achieve co-ordination of all these agencies.
We are targetting the people who market India - tour operations, travel agents - and taking steps to have meeting of such international organisations of tour operators in India so that they have first hand knowledge about India. Several such conventions including the board meeting of the pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is scheduled for this year nad the general body meeting of PATA will be held in India in 2001. But, all such publicity would be ineffective unless the tourists who visit India return satisfied. For this purpose, our main effort has been to make access to India easy. Our missions abroad have already improved the system for visa issue substantially. We are exploring possibilities of allowing visa on arrival.
The basic objective of Explore India in the millennium Year is to get a focus on tourism promotion. It is a long-term objective not limited to one year only. The objective of this programme is to first externally focus attention on India and internally to create national consessus for promotion of tourism. These activities for explore India have been drawn up with assistance from the state governments. A catalogue of activities including a few international sports events have also been planned. The specific target, of course, continues to be cultural tourism. The primary emphasis is on the theme that India is an experience and exploration of mind and sirit.
We are calling it 'Explore India' not necessarily for foreigners but also creating an atmosphere within the country. We wanted to have it immediately in order to catch the Millennium craze.
We also thought that with the 'visit India' concept, we could get focussed on creating infrastructure which i svery important. In the next two to three years, when the general economic scenerio both within and outside the country improves then people would be in a mood to go around on money spending spree. At the time, we may be found lacking. So, Explore India Year is an opportunity to refocus attention of foreign tourists which has somehow not been in tune with our potentials.
During this year, we have a large number of activities which will be organised primarily by the States with the assistance of central Government. The state gvernments will be organising various fairs and festivels. ITDC and AIR INDIA have drawn up some packages for the tourists. We also have activities like the Rajgir Mahotsava, Buddha Mohotsava and the Khajuraho Millennium. We have been promoting India through our 19 offices abroad and embassies. In carrying out all the activities required promotion of tourism resource is a constraint.
We have a paltry budget allocation of Rs 110 Crores only. We are also trying to harness the fund available with different Ministries for district level schemes.
We are requesting the State Governments that tourism should be incorporated into district development places. We are also involving organisations like Travel Tour operators and PATA and IATO. We are going to have PATA convention in India. Also, we are thinking of holding world Tourism Ministers summit in India. We are now on website and besides this we are also financing the State governments to develop websites, bringing our CD Roms and distributing them. However all said and done, our action should start at home. A satisfied customer is the best publicity we can have and we are focussing on that aspect.
Fairs and Festivels are an integral part of India's culture and tradition. They provide a microscopic view of the rich mosaic of our country's religion and mythology. These festivels are celebrated countrywide and it would not be out of place to mention that in India there is celebration of festival almost everyday.
Keeping in view the importance of this product in the dramatic and overseas market, a calender of events of these fairs and festivels as well as other activities planned during the Explore India Millennium Year has been produced. This Calender would help the tourists and the travel trade in providing relevent information about the activities being planned in every nook and corner of India.
No other country in the world, perhaps, celebrates so many festivels as does India,. Festivels of different hues and colours, followed by people of different religions, castes, languages and cultures.
Festivels have fostered a sense of national integrity in India since time immemorial. That is why, despite countless foreign invasions resulting in the intermingling of different cultures and traditions, India has emerged as a stronger nation.