Building India’s image

A round-table was organised ahead of the inaugural ‘Conference on Soft Power’ set to be held in Delhi from December 17-19, 2018.

TT Bureau

India Foundation’s Centre for Soft Power in association with the Indic Academy organised a round-table discussion on ‘Tourism & Soft Power’ to identify, deliberate and discuss Indian soft power in the field of tourism. Multiple practitioners, experts, policy makers and other stakeholders from the vertical of medical tourism, experiential tourism, education tourism and cultural/event tourism reviewed the existing policy frameworks and recommended suggestions ahead of the inaugural ‘Conference on Soft Power’ to be held in New Delhi from December 17-19. The conference will cover multiple aspects of soft power of which tourism is a very integral part.

Sharing more details about the round-table discussion, Vishala Reddy, Founder Director, IdentCITY said, “This is actually a planning round-table for the upcoming conference in December. The country’s foreign policies are more focused on hard powers like the military, industries and economic growth. Apart from that, the country is now adopting soft powers to influence the foreign policies and improve international relations.”

“We aim to use art, culture, food, cinema, yoga and tourism as the soft power elements to attract international attention and help in India’s image building globally. Travel connects people, changes perceptions and introduces people to different cultures. Therefore, tourism is an excellent interface to build a better brand image of the country. The round-table focused on issues plaguing the Indian tourism industry and deliberated over the kind of solutions to alleviate them. We will also come up with a working paper that will be submitted to the relevant authorities,” she further added.

Talking about the deliberations at the round-table, Neeraj Thakur, General Secretary, Telangana Chamber of Event Industry said, “The objective was to make a white paper presentation about the matters related to tourism and have a close net study about the subjects which we are going to deliberate and discuss at the upcoming conference. We discussed how tourism can be used as a tool to elevate the position of India in the world.”