The tourism ministry has extended its flagship Visit India 2009 campaign till March 2010 as the recent swine flu scare and global economic meltdown continue to affect foreign tourist arrival (FTA) numbers in the country. The campaign was launched in the beginning of the year as one of the mechanisms to give a fillip to tourist arrivals, which had dipped significantly post Mumbai terror attacks in November, 2008.
It offers buy-one-get-one-free deals in air tickets and hotel stays. Leading airlines and hotel chains such as Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Air India, Taj, Oberoi group and ITC among others are partners in the ministry initiative. Earlier, the campaign was supposed to run for April-December period. Tourism minister Kumari Selja, however, told FE that its scope has now been extended till the ?end of the season? that is till March.
?The campaign will now run till March 2010 instead of December-end. It will help attract tourists during the festive season and I expect Commonwealth Games to be another attraction after that,? said Selja. ?The campaign is a success as it has helped improve FTAs and foreign exchange earnings. The earnings have shown growth despite arrivals being down. This indicates at the impact the campaign has had, coupled with other initiatives like Incredible India and road shows,? Selja added.
Though foreign tourist arrival numbers still run in the negative terrain, they have improved from a minus 17% (in the beginning of the year) to around 0.9% in October. For November, FTAs were down by 0.6% compared to 5.18 lakh for the same period last year. Foreign exchange earnings during November stood at Rs 5,523 crore compared with Rs 4,935 crore in November, 2008.
The campaign involved one complimentary international air ticket, one night complimentary stay in the hotel booked by the tourist, one complimentary local sightseeing tour in any one city and a complimentary rural eco holiday in the country.