Road Trip to Promote Sikkim

Gangtok, Jan. 25: Eight youths from the state have set out on a 101-day cross-country expedition, organising road shows in different cities to promote Sikkim as an ideal tourist destination.

Chief minister Pawan Chamling flagged off the expedition from the Maghe Sankranti festival in Jorethang 10 days ago.

Travelling in two vehicles, the members of Sikkim Tourism Cooperative Society Limited have already reached Hyderabad, after stopovers in Calcutta, Bhubaneswar, Puri and Vishakhapatnam.

The team plans to go to 26 states and five union territories, stopping at 44 major cities and covering around 22,000km by road.

The state tourism department and private sponsors have joined hands to help the youths hard-sell Sikkim across the country.

“Our approach reflects the uniqueness, vibrancy, determination and enthusiasm of Sikkim, which is a relatively young state,” said Kishore Khadka, a member of the team, over telephone from Hyderabad today. “We are very happy with the response we have got so far.”

“We are hopeful that this new mode of promotion will have an effect on people, since it involves personal visits, meetings and road shows and campaigns in each state. It allows the local population to interact with us and learn about our state,” said Praneet Pradhan, another member of the group.

The team is also distributing promotional goodies like caps, T-shirts and compact discs, along with handbooks and other printed material.

Despite an abundance of tourist destinations, Sikkim gets only 0.4 per cent of the total volume of foreign tourists who visit India every year. The slightly better market share in the domestic tourist sector is split between the two peak seasons of two-and-a-half months each, leaving stakeholders with little business during the rest of the year.

The team hopes to create an environment that will help generate a constant volume of tourists through most part of the year.

The expedition has targeted two primary segments of the market for the promotional campaign. The members will first reach out to the general population of the country to create awareness on Sikkim as an ideal tourist destination. They will provide information on various destinations in the state and extend personal invitations to visit Sikkim.

The team will also interact with tour agents and operators in different locations. “We want to make holidays in Sikkim available to people living in every state and union territory of India,” one of them said.