Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, in association with Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) recently organised a symposium on Film Tourism at Mumbai’s Taj Lands End.
The event was aimed at promoting Film Tourism by exploring opportunities available in the states for conducting film shootings. It was jointly chaired by Secretary – Tourism, Arvind Singh and Secretary – I&B, Apurva Chandra.
While speaking about film tourism, Singh, said, “The federal system of our governance makes such (film) incentives mostly a state subject and I must say that there are many states which actively encourage film tourism and are quite successful in this regard.”
He also suggested that State governments should consider establishing a film promotion office preferably in Chief Minister’s Office for timely shooting permissions. He observed that this is required since most of the issues regarding approvals are localized and within the purview of the State Governments. He further suggested that the film promotion office should also have the authority to intervene and sort out issues at the local level wherever required.
He also said that there are several bottlenecks and there needs to be a concerted push. “This should be a two-pronged approach, one at the policy level by making it procedurally easy for the producers to shoot in India and the other with a promotional effort by making them aware of the vast potential of India as a film shooting destination,” he stated.
Singh also informed about the initiative of tourism ministry in promoting film tourism. “Ministry of Tourism had an MoU with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and NFDC for promoting Cinema of India as a sub brand of Incredible India at various international film festivals like International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Goa, Cannes Film Festival to develop synergy between tourism and the film industry and to provide a platform for enabling partnerships between the Indian and global film industry.”
