Evaluation of incredible India in UK market Essay

Like any other trade sector, evaluation of a brand in a specific market depends heavily on the data collected in some specific segments, and in here they are: A. Quality of infrastructure, i. e. , issues involved amenities like transport, water, rail and road links, boarding and lodging, etc. B. Travel behavior, i. e. , estimate about the appetites of the travellers. C. Effectiveness of communication: This area is self-explicit. D. Quality of product, i. e., quality and quantity of tourist sites, where quality should be interpreted as the magnitude of significance of a site in terms heritage, beauty, adventure, unique natural phenomenon, therapeutic or spiritual angles. Detailed and authenticated data on the state of these segments would be instrumental in determining the exact standing of this campaign in a specific market. For that matter this study uses the information furnished in the Report on Evaluation Study in Selected Overseas Markets (2007) created by The Gallup Organization for Market Research Division, Ministry of Tourism, and Government of India. A. Infrastructure: While the Gallup Study observes the overall growth in the infrastructure Industry is encouraging for tourism in the future, it furnishes terribly disappointing information in the next page, where it compares the state of India’s aviation industry to that of China and informs that India has 15 million seats (as on September 2006) as against 140 million seats in China (p. 13). However, the report churns out good news after a few pages by mentioning about the awards won by Incredible India campaign and the survey results that consider India amongst the top five favourite destinations (p. 17). B. Travel Behaviour: Only 32% people of United Kingdom are aware of Indian Tourism Offices, though India and UK has a direct relationship for around 300 years. The Gallup Report (p. 45) observes that the past travel record of UK citizens(46%) were only next to Australia (51%), while the current survey shows that American tourists (799, 062) have pushed the British tourists (796,191) behind them (Incredible, 2008). Gallup Report observes that in terms of future behaviour, UK shows only 5% growth rate (p. 50). Now tallying this observation with the state of communication with UK would provide the clue why the future of growth of Indian tourism in UK looks so dismal. C. Effectiveness of communication: The chart below highlights the state of communication between India and other major countries/continents in terms of travel arrangements. Booking for Travel Arrangement (% Yes) CANADA USA UK EUROPE MIDDLE EAST S. KOREA JAPAN AUS RECENT TRAVELLERS Through Phone 54 46 16 9 7 8 23 17 10 Through Internet 44 69 46 46 7 24 60 39 22. Through Travel Agents 89 63 56 60 45 76 83 74 68 In Person 76 44 18 34 72 15 33 43 15 Others 12 10 11 6 – 11 – 5 2 Gallup Report: P. 55 The above table shows that communication with UK is below expectation, if one considers the legacy of 300-year close communication between India and UK. D. Quality of product: From the perspective of the history of Indo-British relationship of over 300 years, elements like cultural heritage (colonial times) or deserves a place in the choice of the British travellers, but the survey (below) does not even include that. (%) CANADA USA UK EUROPE MIDDLE EAST S. KOREA JAPAN AUS RECENT TRAVELLERS Adventure Sports 14 18 5 18 17 13 15 12 2 Eco-tourism 54 56 35 44 65 27 25 34 16 Shopping 51 46 44 33 87 15 27 54 38 Sight-seeing 98 99 79 88 89 79 94 93 87 Pilgrimages 27 20 8 21 2 35 10 23 7 Visiting friends / relatives 35 25 23 12 8 – 6 19 17 Medical treatment 9 13 13 10 38 8 6 4 1 Cultural Events 61 75 31 67 22 52 46 67 – Others 34 52 14 44 4 – 8 17 2 Business purposes – 4 3 11 – – – – 26 Adapted from Gallup Study: P.57. Here also it is seen that UK is lagging behind USA and Japan, in spite of their close contact with India for more than three centuries. Another notable factor is that there is not much response in the medical tourism sector, though thee is a recent surge in Medical Tourism in India due to reasons like state-of-the-art medical facilities at far cheaper rates and high medical insurance cost in UK. A brief analysis of the online campaign of Incredible India would corroborate that too. III. 1. Analysis of online campaign: 1. Statement of Purpose (â€Å"About Us† page): While it boasts about its network of 20 offices within India and 13 offices abroad, it fails to mention about its central policy. 2. Topics covered: It contains three major topic domains distributed under heads like Trip Planner, Experience India and Holiday Ideas, where the first one deals with trip arrangements, second attempts to brief India thematically and the third one provides ideas about tourist activities. None of them contains any clue to the prospective medical tourists. Omission of this important issue looks is even more surprising, as the Tourism Department of India itself has launched a medical tourism campaign separately, where it clearly expresses its views like medical tourism or health tourism in India is fast gaining grounds and tries to gain competitive advantage by citing examples of quality infrastructure and cheap costs as against skyrocketing healthcare costs in the country like UK. It even goes on describing at length about the availability of various types of medical treatments and other facilities (Why India, 2007). 3. Apart from that, this campaign hasn’t properly tapped the potential of ancient Indian techniques of well being and healing, like Yoga, Vaastu Shastra, or other spiritual practices, which are now integral part of the global New Age movement along with their Buddhist or Mongoloid counterparts like Feng-Shui, Tai-chi, etc. These facts are already known in the medical fraternity of UK, as it is evident from the various other news like UK doctor setting shop in Goa for medical tourists due to the rising flow of medical tourists in India (UK Indian, 2007), or the news that health tourism in India have flourished to a huge extent, as the Indian hospitals currently estimated to deal with 150,000 foreigners each year (India’s rise, 2007). Yet, Incredible India, the flagship project of positioning Brand India continues to neglect this huge and constantly increasing segment of tourism. In other words, it can be said that the impact of campaign like Incredible India on UK doesn’t prove to be effective as it was expected to be. The above data facilitates the introduction of SWOT analysis on Incredible India Campaign from the perspective of UK market.