New campaign for Indian Himalayas
‘777 days of the Indian Himalayas’ initiative will promote Himalayan states and the gateway cities which will serve them with their airports and railway stations.
The Ministry of Tourism announced a special campaign ‘ 777 days of the Indian Himalayas’ on World Tourism Day. As per
K Chiranjeevi, Minister for Tourism the new campaign will publicise the tourism potential of the Indian Himalayas and promote this incredible tourist product internationally.
“It is the time to change the image of India from the one entirely in the plains to one having major attractions in the Himalayas. This is also the time to change the image from a winter destination to a summer destination as well. The campaign has been called ‘ 777 days of the Indian Himalayas’ and will have a two- fold objective, one, to attract more international tourists to India during the lean summer season, and second, to remind the world that 73 per cent of the Himalayan region is in India,” said Chiranjeevi.
“The aim of this campaign is to promote not only the Himalayan states but also the gateway cities which will serve them with their interna- tional and domestic airports and railway stations. At the time of arrival or departure, the gateway cities will offer an opportunity to the visitors to see the tourism attractions available there. The Ministry plans to launch the campaign on September 27 this year on the occasion of the World Tourism Day. The first major event after the launch will be the Himalayan Run & Trek Event in October 2013,” he added. This decision was taken after a meeting with the office bearers of the Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI). In fact, the ATOAI members agreed to offer attractive discounts to the tourists during the period of the campaign.
Here, Akshay Kumar, President, ATOAI, said, “We are working on 100 new programmes along with new itineraries that will directly benefit six states, namely HP, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, WB, Uttarakhand and J& K. In fact, all other states in India will also ben- efit. In my opinion, it will give the next major push to grow international and domestic tourists in India post the recent two campaigns launched by MOT in November 2012.”