Reema Lokesh – Mumbai
The Maharashtra Tour Organisers’ Association (MTOA) with the support of Kolhapur Hotel Association, recently took part in an extensive familiarisation tour to Kolhapur and surrounding areas, with an objective to enhance the prominence of the region as a tourism destination. Sudhir Patil, president, MTOA stated that the association has taken many initiatives over the past few years to promote varied destinations in Maharashtra and encourage service providers to connect with the right partners through effective networking. MTOA is committed towards helping the service providers by sharing new ideas from time to time. Under the leadership of the president of the association, private service providers have received a platform to represent themselves at the MTDC stalls during various exhibitions. “Now this has become a regular practice and more and more private hotels and service providers are taking advantage of this scheme and are trying to market their products through the exhibitions at very nominal cost. Kolhapur Hotel Association has also taken part in various such tourism events,” he mentioned.
Suggestions by MTOA include the following steps for promoting Kolhapur on the tourism map of Maharashtra and India: Setting up of Kolhapur Tourism Board with seven members from private industry and four from the government; annual budget – Rs 10 cr; marketing and promotional activities; manage proper signage at tourist places as well as for hotels; information display boards at the sightseeing places with maps; printed promotion material freely available to all tourists; list of guides; development of an interactive website; plan for the promotion on social media; participation in exhibitions; road shows and presentations in specific markets such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat; TV commercials; film shooting promotion; development of MICE facilities; incentives to tour operators who promote the destination; database of tourists visiting Kolhapur; offer discount coupons for shopping in Kolhapur after registering online or offline.