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Germany wants to tango with Bollywood to promote tourism
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SME Times News Bureau | 13 Jun, 2018
Germany is eyeing two million Indian tourists by 2030, and what better
way to promote the country in India than through Bollywood.
Films
shot in any country "can do wonders" for its tourism business, said
Romit Theophilus, the German National Tourism Organisation's (GNTO)
India Director, explaining how the European country, as part of its
strategy to court visitors from the world's second-most populous nation,
was encouraging Indian filmmakers to shoot in Germany.
"For
this, we are trying and meeting production houses (in India). We try and
put them in touch with German states and their film commissions so that
they can talk among each other, figure out locations, financial
subsidies, local technical help that they need," Theophilus told IANS.
He
recalled how the 2011 Shah Rukh Khan actioner, "Don 2", was short in
Berlin and how the German hospitality industry was now "hoping to see if
we can get some more movies shot in Germany. "We are trying to work on
that," he said.
Theophilus cited the 2011 multi-starrer "Zindagi
Na Milegi Dobara" shot in Spain and produced in collaboration with the
Spanish tourism promotion agency, Turespana. The Zoya Akhtar directorial
-- starring Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol and Farhan Akhtar -- tells the
story of three friends on a pre-marriage road trip across Spain. It is
said to have boosted Indian arrivals in Spain by about 32 per cent.
"People
didn't see Spain in the sense in which they saw it in this movie. Now,
everybody wants to visit the country. A movie like that does wonders to a
country in terms of tourism," Theophilus said, adding that the tourism
organisation will invite German film commissions to India to push
Germany among Bollywood directors and producers as a film destination.
"The
second step is to invite Indian filmmakers. We are in the process of
planning it. We wish to start working on this next year," said the head
of the organisation that works with the government of Germany on tourism
promotion.
He said the art and culture ties between the two
countries were great with Bollywood movies being screened with German
subtitles over the weekend in Berlin.
"When Bollywood stars go to
Germany for the Berlin International Film Festival, they are surprised
to see how many people from Germany, Austria or Switzerland know them,
know their movies, and are fans of theirs.
"It doesn't stop there... Rajnikanth is also very well known there," he said.
The
GNTO has introduced the "Culinary Germany" theme in India, to use it as
their focus for marketing campaigns this year for a country where,
according to a report, international travel was growing faster than
domestic trips.
Some 852,224 Indians visited Germany in 2017 -- marking a 13.8 per cent growth over 2016.
Theophilus
attributed this jump in figures to sales activities like social media
campaigns and also the word of mouth that goes through a traveller.
He
said earlier their method of promoting tourism was
Business-to-Business. "We were only working with tour operators and
travel agents. Marketing tactics at that time were via these operators
and agents.
"Over the past two years, we have moved towards
digital marketing. We have a totally India-centric Facebook page with a
million followers from India."
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