Incredible India: Evolution of Brand India

“Incredible India: Evolution of Brand India,” provided us with several strategies that could be used moving forward in India’s tourism marketing campaign. Strategy one plays on the strengths that were shown in the original Incredible India campaign. This marketing plan was extremely popular and successful in increasing tourism in India, but may not be the best strategy to use to further increase foreign visitors. In 2011 and 2012, a review was conducted by Nielsen in which consumers from the United States, France, and Australia were questioned on their familiarity with the campaign and any influence it may have had on them. An interesting issue the study found was that consumers are still apprehensive about visiting India because they are unfamiliar with the specifics of how they would get around or how locals would act towards them.^[1] This strategy, which involves continuing marketing the country as a whole, does not address the weakness that the Incredible India campaign had.

Strategy four proposes that each region promote themselves, paying no mind to how the other regions are marketing themselves. When Kant started the Incredible India campaign in 2002, the marketing for tourism in India was left to the devices of each region. It was “inconsistent and nothing less than incoherent.”^[2] The taglines ranged from “Beautiful Bengal” to “Scenic, Serene, Sublime” to “Everything’s Possible!”^[3] Foreign consumers drew little connections between these campaigns, and each one distracted from the others. India needed to focus on becoming an attraction as a country before drawing people to the different regions. This was accomplished through the Incredible India campaign, but it is dangerous now to completely abandon the strategy that brought India its success in attracting visitors in the first place.

Strategy three assigns one central organization the task of marketing the different regions throughout India. The marketing of individual regions is important in addressing the concerns brought about by the Nielsen report; if consumers can learn more about specific areas of India, they may feel more comfortable planning a vacation there. However, this strategy completely abandons the idea of the Incredible India campaign, which marketed the country as a whole and brought a rise in tourism in the first place.  

Strategy two is a combination of strategies one and three, representing the best of both worlds. This marketing plan calls for representation of each state or region by a tourism service provider already established in that area. However, unlike strategy three it does not abandon the Incredible India campaign that attracted so many tourists over the past fifteen years. This plan has the regions working under the Incredible India umbrella, and provides a higher authority that can set standards and that each entity must answer to. The most obvious advantage to this plan is that the marketing for the regions would be done by tourism agencies that already exist and are familiar with the area they are promoting. They know better than anyone what the strengths of their region are, and what weaknesses they must watch out for and account for. Consumers have a pre-disposed image in their head of almost all travel destinations, and this “organic” image can work for or against a destination. The tourism agencies may need to reinforce or diminish that image.^[4] This will be easier to do on a local level.

Another reason this strategy is best is because it can use “destination marketing,” which focuses on responding to specific consumer demands and distributing products to high potential markets.^[5] In this case, the product is the destination, and local tourism agencies can play on the strengths of their area to market to specific consumers who may enjoy what they have to offer. For example, the 2003 campaign run by Kant that focused on “spiritual tourism” brought a 28.8 percent rise in tourist traffic.^[6] This campaign can be used again by regions with spiritual destinations to cater to consumers who want to be led on a journey of self-discovery. Other regions that are highly urbanized can focus on their strengths.

Spreading the responsibility of tourism marketing to individual regions can also have a significant impact on local economies, especially in regions heavily ridden with poverty.^[7] According to the World Bank’s definition, there are 250 to 300 million people who live below the poverty threshold of $1 per day.^[8] This is one of India’s greatest weaknesses; no matter the success of the Incredible India campaign, a great portion of the country is still extremely poor. Spreading the economic benefits of tourism throughout the country will not solve this problem, but it will certainly help. In addition to helping those in poverty, boosting the economy will help create the prosperous country shown throughout the Incredible India campaign. As Amitabh Kant himself said, “a brand is what a brand does. The “Incredible India” campaign could not be sustained if the quality of experience offered to tourists did not remain credible. In the long run, a branding campaign which does not match with the actual experience does damage to the destination rather than promote it.”^[9]