Assam Tourism has unveiled its new logo with the punch line, “Awesome Assam”. Unveiling the logo in Guwahati, the state’s tourism, finance, education and health minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “Tourism publicity will not be confined within the state only, but will be aggressively promoted outside the state.”
Sarma said that inspite of having tremendous potential to become a preferred tourist destination, earlier there was no proper and sustained promotional campaign to put Assam on the global tourism map. He stated, “Henceforth there will be aggressive promotion of tourism under this new initiative and we hope that ‘Assam’ would soon take its rightful position in the global tourism map.”
The state government has also sanctioned fresh funds to the tune of INR 15 crore for tourism promotion and publicity.
The “Awesome Assam” punchline comes with a logo that depicts the three major draws of the state: the one-horned rhino, Assam tea and the Brahmaputra. The minister said that the state would be positioned as an ideal destination for all categories of tourists. He suggested that several European tourists have evinced keen interest to visit the tea gardens where some of their fore-fathers or relatives worked.
Assam will be also marketed as a film destination and soon a single-window clearance system is expected to be in place for granting permission to shoot films. Film producers will be given special incentives for shooting in different locations of the state. Referring to the holy shrine of Kamakhya and Majuli, he stated, “There is a huge potential to attract domestic tourists in these places. The state government has sanctioned INR 33 crore for development of infrastructure at Kamakhya.”
Under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme, the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has also allocated INR 120 crore for development of infrastructure at five national parks in the state. Similarly, ONGC, OIL, NHPC, HUDCO have also shown interest to offer money under their CSR programme for promotion of tourism.
Speaking to Express TravelWorld about the department’s latest initiative, Anurag Singh, managing director, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) said, “In the next one-two years, our efforts will be directed to seal our position as a leading tourist destination of the country. The proposed publicity campaign will be across different mediums. Our focus would be on spreading the message online through social media. We would also organise FAM tours for national and international travel publications and invite travel writers to visit and write about the different tourist locations of the state. Besides, there will be advertisements in leading travel publications. Outdoor hoardings will be put at different vantage points including at several international airports in the country. We also have plans to participate in major tourism fairs and expositions to be held in the country. It will be a sustained, but a controlled publicity campaign.”
The key source markets will be those states from where Assam gets a large number of tourists like Bengal, Gujarat, Delhi NCR, southern states and cities such as Chennai and Bengaluru.
ATDC will soon revamp its website and make it more attractive and interactive. Stress will be given on publicising the different cultural and religious festivals of the state. Sharing his views on attracting foreign tourists to the state, Singh informed, “We have received a very good response from Europe and even the US. We would soon reach out to foreign tourists and even plan to participate at the World Travel Mart (WTM) to be held in London later this year. Though nothing has been finalised as of now.”
