MUMBAI: The Rajasthan government will be launching a multi-year, multi-modal and multi-narrative domestic and international tourism campaign on 15 January, 2016 and has set aside a corpus in excess of Rs 100 crore for the same.
Over the next few years, the government is expected to spend the money on the campaign, which envisages rebranding Rajasthan Tourism, including a new logo. The state has partnered with Ogilvy & Mather for the creative side of the campaign.
Despite wide and deep attractions, Rajasthan’s lack of tourism marketing over the last 25 years has resulted in the state falling considerably in international tourism (its share has fallen from 33 per cent to 20 per cent of international travellers) and domestic tourism arrivals (the state gets half of Madhya Pradesh’s 63 million internal tourists) because of aggressive efforts from other states. Tourism is not only employment intensive but capital efficient: it generates 78 jobs per million rupees of investment compared to 45 jobs per million rupees in the manufacturing sector. It not only provides jobs to a wide spectrum of job seekers but many opportunities accrue to women (internationally women account for 70 per cent of the workforce of tourism).
Rajasthan principal secretary Tourism Shailendra Agarwal said, “Rajasthan has not conducted a tourism campaign for the last 25 years and this effort could attract at least one million incremental tourists with a considerable multiplier effect on growth and employment for our state.”
Ogilvy & Mather South Asia executive chairman and creative director Piyush Pandey added, “Rajasthan Tourism is the campaign I have been waiting for, for the last decade. It is my home state and I think I owe it an impactful and effective campaign. I am looking forward to the exciting times ahead.”
The campaign is part of an overall plan for Rajasthan Tourism 3.0. Rajasthan Tourism 1.0 was from Independence till the early 80s whose engine was the state’s landscape. Rajasthan 2.0 began with heritage hotels and forts. Now Rajasthan Tourism 3.0 will combine assets from both phases with an aggressive marketing campaign, a new logo and packed experience calendar that is being developed.
The state government has also appointed a Steering Committee to monitor the creation and implementation of this campaign that includes Mira Mehrishi (Member Secretary Chief Ministers Advisory Council), Shailendra Agarwal (Principal Secretary Tourism), Malvika Singh (member Chief Ministers Advisory Council and Writer), Shoba Narayan (author and journalist), and Anil Chaplot, (Director tourism).
