How Mumbai can play its tourism card efficiently and smartly

Christopher Heywood. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

No matter what is going on in the world, tourists won't stop flocking to New York city. The Big Apple had an estimated 62.8 million visitors in 2017 - a 2.3 million increase from 2016. Maintaining the constant stream of visitors to the city is the NYC & Company, which is NYC's official tourism organisation.

mid-day caught up with Christopher Heywood, senior VP of global communications for the organisation and asked him to share a few trade secrets that Mumbai could learn, replicate, or adapt from NYC, to give its tourism a boost.

"You need to have tourism and marketing campaigns that play to your city's strengths," said Heywood, adding, "I think that Mumbai has a really strong Bollywood presence, and if this was combined with the pop culture that also exists here, it could prove to be really helpful for the tourism industry. Maybe harnessing some of the faces of the city to tell your message through their eyes using pop culture [could help too]. It is also imperative to identify and play out the reasons as to why first-time visitors should come to your city."

All this effort needs backing from the government, too. "There are a number of verticals they (government) can control and invest in, " said Heywood. "Mumbai feels like a very bustling city. It has an energy that I can best describe as exciting. It comprises diverse, warm, friendly people... maybe that's something Mumbai could highlight," he said.

62.8m
No. of visitors in NYC in 2017

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