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Andhra's new tourism pitch: Selling the Araku coffee story
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SME Times News Bureau | 25 Apr, 2018
Araku coffee to Bongu chicken, the specialities of the picturesque Araku
valley in the eastern ghats, are set to get a push as part of ambitious
plans by Andhra Pradesh to promote tourism.
Araku, about 100 km
from this port city, is rich in bio-diversity and natural beauty -- and
is known for Araku coffee, one of the finest in the world.
Riding
on the popularity of the high quality speciality Arabica coffee, the
state's Tourism Department plans to reach out to tourists, telling them
the story of Araku and marketing the product.
Passengers flying
into Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati on Spicejet flights from 27
destinations in the country will soon start getting a complimentary cup
of Araku coffee from the Tourism Department.
The organic coffee
is grown by tribals at an elevation of 1,100 metres above the mean sea
level under the shade of jackfruit, silver oak, mango and banana trees.
It has a delicious, fruity flavour intertwined with caramel and a finish
of bitter sweetness.
About 90 per cent of the total Araku coffee
production is exported to countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and
the United Arab Emirates.
Along with the coffee, every passenger
will also told the Araku story as the department will showcase through
publicity material the things the tourists can see and do in the scenic
valley.
"If a passenger is lucky, he may get a fully-paid
complimentary holiday," Kaushik Mukherji, Principal Advisor to the
Andhra Pradesh Ministry of Tourism, told IANS.
This comes as part
of the efforts by the tourism authorities to rebrand the state with a
focus on developing products for different segments of the market.
As
Araku coffee has emerged as a popular brand in recent years, the
authorities decided to use it to attract more tourists to the valley.
Mahindra
group Chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra, who is promoting
Araku coffee along with some others, last year set up a retail store in
Paris. Mukherji feels local entrepreneurs can take Araku coffee forward
and make it desirable at par with some of coffee brands coming from the
African market.
The Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC) last year procured more than 1,500 metric tonnes of coffee beans.
Both
GCC and the Coffee Board have separately applied to register Araku
coffee under Geographical Indications (GI) to protect its unique
identity.
The Araku story will also tell air passengers about Bongu chicken, another specaility of Araku.
Bongu,
or bamboo, chicken is a traditional tribal cuisine cooked inside a
piece of green bamboo stalk without oil, making it healthy and
delicious. Locally found herbs are used in its preparation, giving it a
unique taste.
"The Tourism Department has to bat on a multi-sensory level to create a brand," Mukherji pointed out.
As
part of the brand-building, the authorities last year organised the
Araku Balloon Festival. The move was aimed at promoting adventure
sports.
The department is creating other products as well to turn
Andhra Pradesh into a compelling destination. The Vizag Music Festival
and the Vizag Yatching Festival were the other events launched to
promote tourism.
"People ask, 'What is there in Andhra Pradesh?'
Charminar and Hussain Sagar and even the famous Hyderabadi biryani have
gone to Telangana. What is worth seeing in Andhra Pradesh? We are
telling them what they can see and what they can do here," Mukherji
explained.
Currently tourism contributes seven per cent of the
state's GDP. He believes powerful tourism brands can help the sector
contribute 24-25 per cent.
Out of India's 29 states, four states
earn 82 percent of the total national tourism revenue while the
remaining 25 fight for18 percent
Mukherji is confident that with
new initiatives and an approach like a marketing company, Andhra Pradesh
can leave the four leading states behind. "If we can't do it, it will
be an opportunity lost because Andhra Pradesh, with a nearly 1,000 km
coastline, has the best tourism products," he said.
He pointed
out that one of the biggest current holiday craze in the world is
tree-top living as it takes mankind back to its early footsteps.
Thus, at Tyda, a small village on the way to Araku from Vizag, the Tourism Department has built cottages on trees.
Mukherji proposes to build similar tree cottages in Bhavani island in Vijayawada, where each tree is 150 years old.
Explaining
the idea behind developing different tourism products for different
segments, he said selling Andhra Pradesh as one tourism product will be
wrong strategy as the state has much more to offer.
"There are
different products for different segments and for different reasons. For
instance, some can send their parents for spiritual tourism as the
state offers a full circuit from Simhachalam to Tirupati. Or send their
son on his 18th birthday for an adventure holiday like Tyda treetop
living or ziplines or diving," added Mukherji.
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