India needs better marketing to promote global tourism

Kolkata, Aug 30 (UNI) India needs a more aggressive global marketing strategy for giving a filip to tourism further in a highly competitive environment, according to German Consul General in Eastern India Guenter Wehrmann.

Speaking to newsmen after participating in an interactive meeting with members of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI) here today, Mr Wehrmann said since India possessed a very rich and unmatched diversity of culture, ancient heritage and large pools of flora and fauna, it had got all the potential of becoming the largest tourist hub of the world.

But primarily because of lack of proper marketing and initiative in projecting the country to overseas visitors in a more aggressive and colourful manner, it had so far failed to attract more than five per cent of nearly 800 million world visitors per annum, the German Consul General, also a well known Inodologist, regretted.

Asked about West Bengal, he said in the wake of its ongoing industrial rejuvenation programme a lot of foreigners, including Germans, though mostly from the business community, had started evincing interest in the state, which had remained almost unknown to them so far, thereby opening a new vista for the promotion of tourism industry too.

'' Renowmed interest towards Eastern India, particularly West Bengal, has brought back German airlines Lufthansa to Kolkata after a gap of nearly three decades with thrice a week direct flight to and from Frankfurt, '' Mr Wehrmann said and hoped the airlines would soon start even daily flight from the city connecting Germany as well as the Western Europe and the US more frequently with the region.

Earlier, speaking at the Chamber, Mr Wehrmann said the two-way trade between the two friendly nations were growing by leaps and bounds over the past few years to cross the 93.34 billion dollar mark by March, 2006, with an annual growth of over 20 per cent from last year.

Keeping in view the growing relations between the two nations, it was poised to cross the record 100 billion dollars mark by next year, the German Consul General said, adding with Indian import from his country touching the 58 billion dollar mark last year. It was tilting slightly in favour of his country with heavy engineering machineries, auto components and wind energy technology becoming the major items.

Moreover, he said, following the successful visits of two German business delegations in the city earlier this year, another major German delegation was coming here in January next to explore further possibilities.

Regarding the German Foreign Minister's proposed visit to the country later this year and whether it would include visit to Kolkata, Mr Wehrmann said it was too pre-mature to comment on his itinerary.

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