Rs 150 cr ad blitz by tourism ministry

The Ministry of Tourism plans to spend Rs 150 crore for promotion of its 'Incredible India' campaign this year.

Of this, nearly Rs 100 crore would be spent on overseas promotion and marketing while the remaining Rs 50 crore will be spent for advertisements in the print media and internet.

Last year, the government had spent Rs 100 crore to promote the campaign.

"We would promote India in places like the US and Europe through billboard advertisings. We also intend to put up 'Incredible India' advertisements on taxis, buses and trams in US and Europe," said Neela Lad, assistant director, India Tourism development corporation.

In 2005, over 39.2 lakh tourists visited India, a 19 per cent increase compared with the number of tourists who came to the country in 2004. The number of domestic tourists in 2005 touched around 40 crore.

According to the statistics with the Immigration Bureau, Britons were among the largest number of foreign tourists to arrive in India in 2005. Over 5.38 lakh British tourists arrived in India in 2005, followed by 5.21 lakh visitors from the US, 1.38 lakh from France and 1.33 lakh from Canada.

Indian tourism industry has enormously benefited from the 'Incredible India' campaign initiated by the government with a large number of tourists flocking to the country over the last few years.

It is only during the last couple of years that the government began to aggressively market the country overseas. The government plans to increase value growth than volume growth focusing primarily on high-end tourists.

The tourism industry earned Rs 21,550 crore ($ 4,789 million) in foreign exchange between April 2005 and January 2006, a 20.1 per cent increase compared with the revenue in corresponding period in the previous year.