Rebranded as ‘the sweetest part of India’ (think rossogolla, gulab jamun and sandesh), West Bengal, which until recently hadn’t cared much about promoting tourism beyond Kolkata and Darjeeling, is aggressively selling itself as a place to be intensively experienced by tourists.

Taking lessons from Rajasthan and Kerala, the Mamata Banerjee Government is trying to woo tourists with multi-pronged marketing campaigns. The colonial history, culture and heritage, apart from the nature, wildlife and mountains, are the highlights of the campaigns.

“We are now trying to catch up with the leading tourism States in the country,” Umapada Chatterjee, director of tourism, told BusinessLine . “We have everything the tourist wants to experience, but we could not market them well.” He pointed out that in 2011, the government had set aside only ₹9 crores for tourism. This year the budget allocation was ₹257 crores, indicating a paradigm shift in the government’s attitude. O&M has been hired as the consultant to chalk out a professional campaign.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan is the brand ambassador. Road shows and tourism melas are being organised to attract tourists from other States. It is the huge potential for employment generation that had forced the government to take tourism seriously.

Chatterjee said the government would soon be coming out with a tourism policy which would aim to promote the public-private participation mode for developing new tourism products and building the tourism infrastructure. “The government will be a facilitator and regulator,” Chatterjee said. “It doesn’t want to be the lead player, it will show the way for the private entrepreneurs.”

Participation of the local communities would be a key policy element to make the local people the stakeholders. For example, the government would encourage villagers to set up home-stays. The home-stays would add to the available accommodation; give a genuine local flavour to the tourist experience; and, in the process, would provide a decent livelihood to the villagers. He said home-stays would particularly be encouraged in the environmentally-sensitive Sundarbans (home to the iconic Bengal Tiger).

History and heritage was a key component of Bengal Tourism. Historical places such as Murshidabad, which used to be the capital of Bengal before the Battle of Plassey in AD 1757), would be promoted. “Murshidabad has an important place in Indian history as the defeat of its Nawab, Siraj ud-Daulah, led to the start of British rule over Bengal with Kolkata as the capital,” Chatterjee said. The innumerable monuments in the colonial city of Kolkata would be spruced up for the tourists.

“In order to take the pressure off Darjeeling, we are planning to distribute the tourist population across the vast Darjeeling district,” he said. Dooars and Cooch Behar were being made tourist-friendly.

While W Bengal has a rich history, colonial heritage, tigers, mangrove forests, and of course rossogollas, the rural poverty, people’s indifference to tourism and shortage of tourist infrastructure could be barriers to realising the government’s sweet ambitions. “We are making sincere efforts to remove the barriers,” promises Chatterjee.

The writer was in W Bengal at the invitation of Bengal Tourism

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