India conducted roadshows in major US cities like Chicago and New York, along with tier-II cities with information about yoga and ayurveda to attract tourists.
To lure tourists from the US and the UK, the government is trying out roadshows and the appeal of Indian therapies like yoga and ayurveda. Tourism minister KJ Alphons presided over a series of ‘Incredible India’ roadshows in New York and Chicago in June, as per a report by Economic Times.
India was host to over 1.4 million US tourists in 2017, 6 percent higher than in 2016 and about a quarter higher than 2014. Tourists from UK stood at 9,86,296 in 2017, 4 percent higher than in 2016 and over 17 percent than 2014.
The boost in the growth of American tourist arrivals in India is credited to issuing of e-visas and growing business between the two countries.
Alphons told ET, “We plan to flood overseas markets with new promotional videos of yoga and ayurveda. We had about 25 tour operators in the delegation who made presentations on India and interacted with tour operators there and covered New York, Chicago, Houston and St Louis in the US last month.”
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Sources said the markets have generated good responses to this strategy, especially the newer cities like St Louis. This time, the novelty was that the tourism minister himself led the shows.
It is important to look at tier-II cities in the US to boost tourism numbers for India. Sources said that the US was one of the earliest countries to be included under the e-visa programme and the UK came in later.
“There is an improvement in direct connectivity in flights to the US and the growing business between India and the US has also contributed to the numbers,” an official adds.
Following closely after Bangladesh, US was the second biggest source market for Indian tourism in 2014 with 11.2 percent share of total foreign tourist arrivals.