Tourism India on YouTube

Monday, August 27. 2007

Lots of National Tourism Offices, as well as regional and city destination marketing organizations are trying to leverage social media platforms to connect with consumers. What I personally think is exciting that social media bridges the gap between web marketing and CRM, and it is actually becoming the new way to build customer relationships.

Incredible India, the Tourism Authority of India has also now entered into the social media space - at least leveraging the distribution of brand material on UGC sites. Just last week, Secretary of India's Ministry of Tourism, Mr Shilabhadra Banerjee, launched a Brand Channel on YouTube to help communicate the wonders of India to a worldwide audience. The "Incredible India" campaign will see promotional Incredible India videos being made available to the YouTube community at www.youtube.com/India. Mr S. Banerjee said India has to show the world the progress made since its Independence 60 years ago. As per the Neilsen NetRatings. www.youtube.com has about 48 million unique users in US only and it is the 8th most trafficked website in the world. This Channel www.youtube.com/India will give further international exposure to "Incredible India" (which includes content related to India's Independence) and, with its dynamic video content, will complement the already content-rich web presence of the Ministry of Tourism’s website http://www.incredibleindia.org. Presently there are 18 Films/Videos uploaded on the site and more will be added in due course of time.

Lots of national tourism offices are looking to invest in India, and some of them have even opened offices in India. But tourism itslef is very important for India as well. Having done a little resaerch, Tourism has been one of the largest net earners of foreign exchange for India recording earnings of Rs. 29603.56 crore in 2006 compared to Rs.25172.25 crore in 2005. There has been a further increase of 18.2% in foreign exchange earnings in the first 7 months of the current year 2007 with Rs.18258.57 crore as compared to the corresponding period in 2006 with an earning of Rs.15958.14 crore. Foreign tourist arrivals have increased by 78% in the last five years and foreign exchange earnings during the same period have grown by 122%. The year 2006 saw an increase of 13% in foreign tourist arrivals (4.41 Million, by preliminary estimates) over 2005 with arrivals of 3.91 Million. The first 7 months of the year 2007 have already seen an increase of 11.9% with an arrivals of 2.76 Million as compared to the first 7 months of 2006 with an arrival of 2.47 Million.

Posted by Jens Thraenhart in Travel & Tourism at 08:17 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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Hi Jens - interesting post, thanks. I was at a presentation last night discussing country brand indexes and the progress Scotland has made in consolidating its brand image overseas. One of the questions to the presenter, Judy Torrence of the Scottish Goverment, was which country brand campaigns were seriously on her radar. The obvious one in Scotland terms is always New Zealand, but it was interesting that hearing her speak this time, it was the Incredible India campaign that she cited, along with the country brand development work achieved by Spain. I feel India is a facsinating one to watch, because like Scotland it has an expansive global diaspora that it wants to attract back to the country in both tourism and inward investment terms, and like Scotland that diaspora often has brand perceptions of the country that are quite dated and which are hard to develop without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". The venture on to You Tube makes so much sense (and I'd be interested in what form there Orkut presence is or will take given its demographic make-up). Thanks again for a great post, Vicky

Comment (1)

#1 Vicky Brock (Homepage) on 2007-09-07 05:09 (Reply)

very helpful.

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#2 shehla masood (Homepage) on 2007-11-11 06:52 (Reply)

For a long time I have wondered why don't we see some positive article on India in the western media and today when i read your blog it became clear. Very well written.

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#3 Cheap family package holidays (Homepage) on 2008-06-09 18:01 (Reply)

very interesting. I found much from your blog. Interesting videos.

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#4 Benzamin (Homepage) on 2008-07-27 05:47 (Reply)

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#5 Roshni Hindu (Homepage) on 2008-10-24 19:17 (Reply)

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