Bengal hopes to tap into King Khan’s starpower to increase tourist inflow

It has been decided in a recent meeting, attended by senior officials of the State Tourism Department that the time was opportune to reach out to each and every part of the country to attract more tourists. The basic idea will be to showcase places of attraction to convince more people from other states to visit West Bengal and nothing but good will come if the advertisements of the state tourism department feature Shah Rukh Khan.

A new promotional video has been made starring both Shah Rukh Khan and actor and Trinamool Congress MP Dev, which features popular places including Darjeeling, Sunderbans, Digha, Bishnupur, Dooars and Murshidabad. The video was featured prominently in multiplexes and shown in different television channels.

“The decision to display the ads at important railway stations across the country is expected to bring an overall change in the state’s tourism industry,” said an official of the department, adding that a transformation has taken place in the past five years as basic infrastructure has come up to make the journey of tourists to places of interest in the state memorable. All the ads will carry the newly coined catch line “The sweetest part of India”.

At the same time, steps have been taken to introduce catamaran vessels to ferry people from Kolkata to Mayapur. People will be able to travel to Mayapur while enjoying the beauty of nature on both sides of the river Hooghly. It will take around 4 hours to reach Mayapur from Kolkata. The catamarans will be brought from Thailand. Food will be provided on board. However, the tourism department is yet to come up with the cost of the trip from Kolkata to Mayapur.

Mayapur is one of the most important places of interest and hundreds of people visit the temple there every day. Tourism department officials feel it will attract tourists from different parts of the country and abroad.

After coming to power, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has managed to maintain peace all across the state, which is one of the most important reasons behind a sharp rise in footfall at the places of interests in the past five years.

However, after coming to power for the second term, Banerjee mentioned that all departments of her government have to be the best in the country. Hence, further initiatives are being taken to bring in more tourists by highlighting the USP of those areas.