Merlin woos Indians with Ramdev statue

Merlin Entertainment recently unveiled yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s wax statue in Delhi, to be placed at Madame Tussauds New York museum. They are planning to add more Indian figures to augment Indian footfalls at the museum, and are in dialogue with key travel trade partners for the promotion of Madame Tussauds New York, in India.

Amita Pandey

Merlin Entertainments unveiled the wax statue of yoga guru Baba Ramdev in Delhi recently. The wax figure will be showcased at Madame Tussauds New York. This addition is expected to attract more Indian diaspora at the world’s greatest wax museum in New York.

Merlin, as a location-based global entertainment leader, currently operates more than 140 global attractions, 23 hotels, and six holiday villages in 24 countries spanning four continents. India is one of their major source markets. “Baba Ramdev is the perfect figure to represent India in New York,” said Tiago
Mogadouro, Head of Marketing, Madame Tussauds New York, during the unveiling of Baba Ramdev’s wax statue.

Baba Ramdev is a world-renowned yoga guru, who has played a significant role in mass awakening about yoga and connected over two billion people in the world. As per Merlin, Baba Ramdev’s statue will be pivotal in reaching the Indian market. “To be more inclusive, we are planning to add more figures to Madame Tussauds New York from diverse walks of life, and the addition of Baba Ramdev’s wax statue is the testament of the same. This initiative will draw visitors from India and the whole world to New York and will add diversity to our audience as well,” Mogadouro added.

He said, “We are engaging in interactions with our Indian trade partners so that Madame Tussauds could be more visible to the wider audience or Indian tourists visiting New York. We expect that our meetings with trade partners and tourism experts in India will result in Indians adding Madame Tussauds to their itinerary whenever they are travelling anywhere.”

Merlin is expecting that, being the host city of T20 World Cup 2024, New York will welcome a huge number of Indian cricket fans and diaspora to the city. This could be a grand opportunity for Merlin to attract Indian visitors to Madame Tussauds. Therefore, to boost business, they have strategically planned to reveal Sachin Tendulkar’s wax statue at Madame Tussauds New York in 2024. Concerning the other marketing strategies, which Merlin is executing to boost international footfall, Mogadouro responded, “Every year we are adding 10 wax statues to Madame Tussauds’ collections, which is a huge number.”