New Delhi: Launching theme based marketing campaigns every year have become a trademark German National Tourist Board (GNTB) destination promotion strategy over the years and with good dividend too as Germany witnessed a staggering 84 million overnight stays by international visitors in 2017, recording an increase of 3.6 per cent over the previous year.
As part of a global destination promotion campaign, German National Tourist Office (GNTO) India, has launched “Culinary Germany-More to explore”, as its core marketing theme this year that is aimed at encashing the growing “experiential” buzz around the modern day leisure travel.
Commenting on the theme, Romit Theophilus, Director, GNTO India, said, “This year we are focussing on culinary Germany as a theme here in India as well. Our goal is to focus different regional specialities that Germany has to offer. I always tell people India is a lot like Germany when it comes to cuisine because every hundred kilometres you have different cuisine. That’s something interesting. Besides, there are a lot of vegetarian options which we are trying to stress on also in the Indian market.”
Furthermore while outlining the NTO’s strategy for the theme in the Indian market, Theophilus, added, “We are doing a huge facebook campaign which will start next month that will talk about different kind of German food. We are trying to pair it with Indian cuisine for you to see the similarity. We will try to show dishes which are similar to Indian dishes and taste similar to Indian dishes. Then we are doing some cooking video and cooking shows as well that will show you how to cook those dishes also.”
In order to make a success of the campaign, the NTO is also involving the trade trough the its annual German Travel Mart, its newsletters as well as through sales call that will highlight the Culinary theme along with suggested itinerary underlining German Culinary trail and experiences that tour operators can combine with sightseeing tour packages.
According to a Quality Monitor survey of the German tourism industry, 4 per cent of international holidaymakers come to Germany specifically for the variety and quality of its food and drink. The sector, therefore, contributes at least 3.2 million overnight stays to Germany’s inbound tourism. 53% of holidaymakers from abroad say that going to restaurants and cafés is one of their favourite things to do –besides sightseeing and ahead of visiting museums/exhibitions.
40 per cent of international guests like to experience typical regional cuisine while on holiday in Germany. The GNTB has defined the campaign’s target audience based on the findings of the GlobalWebIndex – which pools data from surveys of internet users based in 40 countries.
Germany received 852,224 visitor overnights in 2017 making for a 13.8% growth over 2016. Owing to this steady growth, The German National Tourist Office (GNTO), India forecasts a 5-8% growth in visitor overnights for the year 2018.
