As the COVID-19 pandemic eases, the Tamil Nadu Tourism Department plans to promote 295 tourist destinations across the State, hand-picking 30 for marketing in the first phase.
In the Budget, the government announced that under the tourism promotion project, 295 destinations had been identified, grouped into six circuits, and a master plan would be prepared on the basis of a comprehensive area development approach to providing the facilities required by tourists at each destination.
“The consultants who were deployed to study these places taking various parameters under consideration have done a complete analysis at each location. The study will be completed in another two months,” a senior official told The Hindu .
“Once we look at the study, we will pick up 25-30 destinations in the first phase and start marketing them,” he said, adding that the idea was to show travellers the unexplored sites in Tamil Nadu.
In the Budget, the government said the overall cost of this project, including the upgrade of the infrastructure and provision of commercial hospitality and logistics infrastructure, was expected to be ₹2,000 crore. Funding would be through public-private partnership, with support from the Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Fund and private investors.
Some parameters taken into consideration for this study are: what needs to be done to make the locations more attractive; how strong is the hospitality sector around the place; how can the soft skills of the local talent can be improved; and the patterns of entry by tourists into the State, the official said.
Work is also under way to strengthen tourism spots on all social media forums with the help of bloggers, content developers and other agencies. “The way forward is to change the way we are marketing Tamil Nadu as a tourist destination. We are working on models in which we can showcase our beaches, forests, mountains and unexplored rural areas,” the official said. “Work is on to put together a social media team, a digital marketing team, and forging partnerships with photographers and bloggers.”
“Earlier, travellers planned and visited one destination but now they want to experience places in and around the spot they visit. We want to give them a multi-dimensional experience,” the official said.
