The Chandigarh Administration, it seems, would stop at nothing when it comes to tourism. After promoting it in almost every form, the city is now all set to promote wedding tourism.
The concept, may be unheard of, primarily means that foreigners willing to be a part of Indian weddings would not have to sneak in to take pictures. Rather, they could actually be welcomed guests at the weddings and enjoy the ceremonies.
Interestingly, Chandigarh would probably be the first city in the country to promote this concept. Also, as Chandigarh gets a footfall of about 7.5 lakh domestic tourists and around 30,000 foreign tourists per year, the concept of wedding tourism is likely to boost tourist arrivals by 2-5%.
Talking about wedding tourism, Vivek Atray, director tourism, Chandigarh Administration told FE that the administration has already started inviting foreign tourists to weddings at two of its hotels, Hotel Mountview and Hotel Chandigarh Beckons, and also at some other private locations. “The tourists could spend about two hours at wedding ceremonies taking place at these hotels. They will be involved in the ceremonies like the other guests. The administration make all the arrangements for these tourists where the hosts does not have a problem in having 5-10 extra guests,” he said.
In the past one year the Chandigarh Administration has made efforts to attract more tourists to the city. The region has been focusing on organising various sports and cultural events like the golf tour, Chandigarh carnival, heritage festival, new year festival etc. After hosting a successful golf tournament in April, the Chandigarh tourism department is moving ahead to develop golf tour packages.
The UT administration has also undertaken various initiatives to attract tourists to the region, like the bed and breakfast scheme, formation of Society for Tourism and Entertainment Promotion (STEPS), in order to upgrade the level of entertainment in the city. Several other projects are underway that are expected to give a boost to tourism.
These include a theme park, multimedia-cum-film city, medicity, education city etc. The city is also attracting Bollywood. Last year about 12 movies were shot here. The multimedia-cum-film city will act as a catalyst in promoting cinematic tourism.