India is a fantastic country with plenty of great tourist spots which attract tourists from all over the world. Countries with even less attractive tourist destinations are marketing themselves well and are enticing visitors to their country. It is high time we move to the fast gear and exploit our vast tourist destinations and promote them abroad as one brand under the `Incredible India' banner. Tourism is a great foreign exchange earner for the country and we, with the help of all state tourism boards, must plan out a winning strategy to garner a larger pie in the world tourism market.

One of the major drawbacks the states are facing while marketing tourism abroad is that we do not project India as one face. Since India is divided into several states and each state is eyeing their share of revenues, a collaborated effort is absent. Even when we participate in some of the world tourism fairs that are held in London and Germany every year, though we are attempting to market `Incredible India' at the India pavilion, different states in the country send their own messages and thus there is no consistency in our marketing and communication efforts. Here again presence and visibility of some of the state tourism boards might be low as they don't have deep pockets to shell out money. Invariably year after year we witness only Kerala dominating this space with massive stall display and impressive presentation. This major marketing imbalance also sends some wrong signals to visitors and traders about India and its tourism potential. This is one key issue the central government needs to address and come with some cutting-edge strategy so that India is promoted under a single brand. Efforts have been made in this direction by launching the `Incredible India' campaign. But one is not sure how much this has helped attracting tourists to woo India.

Countries like Australia, Singapore, China, Malaysia, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Dubai and the US have not fragmented their destinations while marketing. Interestingly, most of these countries market their destinations aggressively with one powerful marketing idea. Singapore is one place where shopping has been a big attraction apart from the several places of interest. But the country has owned shopping as their big brand property and has cleverly used that platform as an annual feature with the `Great Singapore Sale' which lasts close to two months with great razzmatazz ambience and festivity. The event takes place only during summer vacation to tap the huge Indian market. Once the sale event gets over, they plan the Christmas and New Year events which attract a lot of tourists from the neighboring countries. Dubai has also used shopping as an attraction with sweepstakes and raffles to woo tourists.

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