‘Incredible India campaigns may be spotted at Oscars, Grammy’

If the Government has its way, the catchy ‘Incredible India’ tourism campaigns will be spotted in big ticket events like Oscar and Grammy awards.

Tourism Minister Kumari Selja on Friday said there are proposals to place the award winning ‘Incredible India’ spots on international campaigns in big ticket events taking advantage of high viewership of such events.

These events can be at the Oscars, Cannes film festival and the World Economic Forum in Davos — to promote India as an attractive tourist destination, she said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

Ms. Selja said the feedback on the ‘Visit India year-2009’ scheme has been encouraging as it has shown greater awareness and interest about India in overseas countries.

Between April and October this year, she said foreign exchange earnings have shown an increase of 14.98 per cent over the corresponding period previous year.

About the inflow of domestic and foreign tourists to Jammu and Kashmir, she said in 2008 while there was a 3.7 per cent increase of foreign tourist arrival to the state, the domestic tourist arrival, however, slid by 3.5 per cent.