Festival tourism has become an integral part of many countries’ tourism business. India, despite being a land of festivals, is still paving the path to tap its utmost potential.
In recent years festivals are a being used for promoting tourism as it helps in boosting the economy of the host city. Festivals, a time -limited event, encourages visitors to visit the place during the event to have a unique chance to interact with the local community, gaining a deeper experience of the ambience, customs and local culture. As one of the growing segment of the cultural tourism, it is now making deep inroads to each and every countries tourism policy. According to UNWTO, more than 40 per cent of all international tourists are ‘cultural tourists’. A report by the Travel Industry Association of America estimated that two-thirds of U.S. adults visit a cultural or heritage site or attraction when they travel.
Based on these, many nations around the globe, where the tourism segment has advanced to such an extent that it is a key driver of their tourism business, has ventured into the festival and event based tourism. The government now support and promote festivals as part of their strategies for economic development, nation building and cultural tourism. Some countries have become synonymous by the festival it celebrates like St. Patricks day in Ireland, Oktoberfest in Germany, La Tomatina in Spain, etc. According to statistics from Oktoberfest.net, the total number of visitors in 2015 for the much celebrated beer festival (Oktoberfest) was around 7,200,000. According to another report by Oxford Economics the total revenue generated by directly by music tourists for music festivals in UK accounted to £1.9 Billion. The numbers show that festival tourism which is a part of the experiential tourism certainly acts as a large crowd puller.
India : A land of festivals
With diverse culture and tradition, India is known as the ‘Land of Festivals’. From north to south, the country has thousands of festivals which are still unknown to even the domestic travellers. Tourism boards across the world have used festivals for generating opportunities to promote tourism. India is now following a similar trend and slowly making its mark as a premier ‘Land of Festivals’. Every small occasion, from welcoming the spring or rain and the harvesting of crops, to seeing the full moon, lends itself to joyous celebrations splashed with colours, music, folk dances and songs. Festivals will take you for a holy dip in one of its numerous rivers, or cover you with scented colour, swing you sky high, give you elephant or camel rides, and invite you to joyous day and night-long singing, dancing and feasting.
The recently concluded Simhastha Maha Kumbh mela in Ujjain attracted around 50 million people from India and around the world. Kumbh Mela festival is the largest gathering of religious pilgrims in the world and takes place at the intersection of the Yamuna, Ganges and Saraswati rivers. An increasing number of foreign tourists attend the Kumbh Mela to be part of the celebrations and witness religious practices. “we will also use the opportunity to promote tourism,” Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma had said. The eighth edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival, the world’s largest free literary festival, witnessed a record participation of 2.45 lakh people during the five days.
Festivals: A marketing tool
Festivals like Holi, Diwali and Navratri are celebrated across the nation with great pomp. A lot of international tourists are interested in such cultural activities and visit India during this period. In order to portray India’s image as the most sought after destination in the world, the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Govt. of India is taking event routes to showcase India’s tourism strength. Events such as Bharat Parv, BRICS Convention on Tourism, Incredible India Investors Summit, Buddhist Conclave and proposed Global Travel Mart amongst others have been or are being organised. The Ministry organised ‘Bharat Parv’ – a vibrant six day patriotic festival during the ‘Independence Day’ which brought together the diverse cuisine, handicrafts and cultural programmes by local artistes from across the country, to showcase India’s vivid and vibrant culture.
Speaking about the Bharat Parv, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture (I/C) and Tourism (I/C) stated that India has a long history of art and culture which must be taken to various parts of the world. He said that the Prime Minister has a dream to create a great Indian Image with the help of art and culture. The Minister also said that the Tourism and Culture ministries are making all efforts to making India the most popular tourism hub in the world.
Another event ‘Incredible India investors’ summit was organised in New Delhi to bring big and medium investors into India’s tourism sector for necessary value-addition and service sector development. The recently concluded International Buddhist Conclave witnessed the participation of over 285 delegates from 39 counties. “Out of eight important religious places related to Budhhism, seven lies in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accorded a top priority to Buddhism…It is reflected from the participation of more than 285 people from 39 countries in this conclave. It is remarkable and means a lot to us,” Sharma said while inaugurating the Conclave. Speaking on the occasion, Vinod Zutshi, Union Tourism Secretary said : “India is prepared for developing a trans border Buddhist Circuit across ASEAN & SAARC countries to enhance movement of Buddhist pilgrims in the region from remaining parts of the world.”
The objective of the Conclave is to showcase Buddhist heritage and pilgrimage sites in the country to attract tourists from overseas country. ASEAN countries are a major source places for India from Buddhist tourism point of view. All in all these events have emerged as a very important platform on the global level to promote the culture of India and also help in showcasing the untapped tourism products of India.
Setting the example
Tourism boards across the nation are looking to organise festivals to increase the tourism figures, yet majority of the traditional festivals are unknown to the travellers. Here, promotions of these festivals become the most important aspect on the international as well as domestic front. A couple of years ago, travellers were unaware of the beauty of the Rann of Kutch. Today with the promotions and development of these sites this full moon winter festival is on the bucket list of almost every traveller. Last year, the Rann Utsav welcomed almost 2,070,48 visitors, which is a huge number seeing the accommodation infrastructure in the destination.
Speaking about the growth of the festival, Saurabh Patel, former Minister for Tourism, Gujarat said, “We started the Rann Utsav in 2005 in a very small way. The event was a two to five day affair. Over the last few years we have witnessed tremendous success. Since last three years we are organising the Rann Utsav for close to 90 days. In 2011-12, the festival received around 74,000 travellers. Within a short span in 2014-15, we witnessed tremendous success with a footfall of 3, 00,000. The festival has also helped a lot in generating employment for the local people in Kutch. We also promote the handicrafts which are made by the locals, which generate revenue for their livelihood.”
Recently Gujarat Tourism inaugurated the Vibrant Gujarat Navratri Festival 2016, a ten-day long festival to celebrate the auspicious Navratri. The festival was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani. Speaking about the importance of this festival Ganpatsinh Vasava, Minister of Tourism of the Government of Gujarat expressed, “We celebrate the Navratri festival on a global level. Every year we organise various cultural activities during this period apart from the Garba and Dandiya. This event also helps in promoting the small scale industry as we promote our local handicrafts. This year we are expecting around eight lakh tourists, out of which three lakh will be international travellers”. Last year the festival welcomed six lakh tourists.
Following footsteps
In order to showcase and highlight the regional culture, heritage and traditions of the area during this period, the Jammu & Kashmir State Tourism Department has instituted the Navratri Festival as an annual event to be held for all the nine auspicious days of the Navratris. A large number of tourists visit during this period. This festival showcases the religious traditions as well as the popular culture of the region among the millions of pilgrims who visit the Vaishno Deviji Shrine during this period. Mahmood Ahmad Shah, Director Tourism, Kashmir said, “The starting point of Vaishnaodevi which is Katra will be the venue for the Navratra Festival. There will be a lot of events unfolding during these nine days. We have music, culture and we have many new facets to the event. We have been celebrating this festival since a very long time. We need to promote this in a grand way as people are still not aware of this. This is a period when we get a lot of tourists who visit Vaishno Devi. We will further promote this festival in all our platforms to make celebrate it in a large scale.”
Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) leaves no stones unturned , the tourism board organises various festivals such as the Elephanta Festival, the Pune festival, Ganesh Utsav, the Ellora Festival and the Kalidas Festival. This year MTDC introduced special Ganesh Darshan Tours to promote the Ganesh festival. The tour covered six of the most popular Ganesh pandals in Mumbai like Lalbaugcha Raja, GSB Sioncha Raja, Mumbaicha Raja to name a few.
Speaking about the festival tourism in Maharashta, Valsa Nair Singh IAS, Principal Secretary, Tourism & Cultural, Government of Maharashtra stated, “All festivals in Maharashtra are celebrated with abundant fervour and enthusiasm. We are very pleased to receive such a positive response on the Ganesh Darshan tour initiative. The aim of this initiative was not only to boost tourism but also give an opportunity to people across the world to experience and be a part of one of the most popular festival in the state.”
Madhya Pradesh is another state which has been building their tourism around various themes and festival is one of them. The state this year organised its launch edition of Jal Mahotsav in Hanuwantiya, located in the reservoir of Indira Sagar Dam on the Narmada river in February which has already introduced Hanuwantiya to global water based adventure destination. “A destination like Hanuwantiya can come up very fast if we facilitate investment. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has already notified a master plan covering 15-20 villages. The idea is to make it into a long term sustainable destination. We already have boat club in Hanuwantiya. We have already built road infrastructure around and to Hanuwantiya. We are planning to introduce houseboats and speed boats in Hanuwantiya. The Master plan for Hanuwantiya is in final stages. We are developing Hanuwantiya as a global adventure destination,” Hari Ranjan Rao, MD, Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation, said. The 2nd edition of the Jal-Mahotsav will be held for one month from December 15, 2016.
Kerala recently organised Spice Route Culinary Festival, a first-of-its-kind celebration of the fiery flavours found along the over 2,000-year-old maritime trade-way. “The culinary festival is a great opportunity to refortify our ancient links with the 31 countries along the historical spice route. It will provide a space for exchanging ideas and promoting understanding between different cultures and traditions and also help facilitate trade opportunities with these countries,” Kerala Tourism Minister A C Moideen said.
Uttar Pradesh Tourism is also organizing Taj Balloon Festival in Agra. In the launch edition in 2015, a total of 15 hot air balloons with highly experienced pilots and crew from India and abroad participated in the Taj Baloon festival. Balloon enthusiasts from countries like the UK, the US, Spain, Belgium, Taiwan, Australia, UAE and Germany, among others participated the event, informed an official from UP Tourism at the recently concluded IATO Convention in Chennai.
The way forward
With Tourism now being one of the focal segments for this government, event based tourism should be developed in a phased manner. The festivals organised by the State Tourism Boards must be further promoted by the Incredible India at various platforms where they are present. Also, investments are a key to develop these festivals. Promotions will surely pull international and domestic travellers, but still there is need for infrastructure development to further organise the festival in large scale.
One of the best examples globally is the ‘La Tomatina’ Festival in Spain. This festival attracts a lot of international visitors. After the release of the movie ‘ Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara’, even the Indian travellers have set their eyes on this festival. But, on the downside is that the venue of this festival has space restrictions due to which they have set a restriction to only 22,000 visitors.
Some of the states are still exploring new avenues to introduce novel festivals. But it is important to make these festivals an annual event and market it properly.
