The Indian Consulate in San Francisco screened the inauguration of the Chalo India Global Campaign for tourism launched by Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 7, 2024, from Srinagar, Kashmir.
Members of the Indian diaspora, community associations, and elected representatives attended the event organized by the Consul General of India in partnership with India Community Centre (ICC), Association of Indo Americans (AIA), and Festival of the Globe – Silicon Valley (FOG) at ICC, Milpitas. During the event, Consul General Dr. K. Srikar Reddy invited the diaspora and friends of India to become “Incredible India” ambassadors and invite five non-Indian friends to explore India’s culture, heritage, and landscapes every year.
“The basic objective of the campaign is to have people’s involvement,” Consul General Reddy said. “Each one of you will be serving as ambassadors of the Incredible India campaign to promote India’s tourism industry.”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Consul General said, India attracted around 10.7 million tourists which reduced drastically during the pandemic. Currently, the numbers are back to around 70% of the pre-pandemic level. But, he said, in 2019, there were close to 1.5 billion tourists globally, contributing around $1 trillion but India received only 2% in terms of tourist spending.
Tourism is an important employment generator in India, he said, currently with 40 million jobs related to the tourism industry. It provides employment to hotels, resorts, restaurants and travel agencies and tour operators.
Many community members and leaders, including Manoj Goel, the CEO of ICC, Tara Sreekrishnan, a California Assembly candidate, Romesh Japra, founder of FOG, and Dr. Anurag Mairal, a professor at Stanford and president of Sewa International, amongst others, spoke in support of the campaign and mentioned steps that everyone could take in their own capacities to participate.
“Our job is to make sure that our Indian culture, which is rich with traditions, is fully understood by others by taking people to India,” said San Jose Councilmember Arjun Batra.
