The Great Indian Blog Train – Press Brief

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, keeping in mind the importance of Social Media as an effective tool for destination branding and marketing, is organizing a Social Media Key Influencers’ Campaign “The Great Indian Blog Train” involving bloggers from the across the world, who have been invited to travel to destinations in the country on the Luxury Trains operating in different States.

The Tourism Secretary with international and domestic bloggers at Safdarjung Railway Station in New Delhi

A total of 60 Bloggers from 23 countries including India will be travelling on a week long journey on four luxury trains, i.e Palace on Wheels, Maharaja Express, Deccan Odyssey and Golden Chariot in groups of 15 Bloggers on each train.

The objective of the campaign is to position luxury trains of India as a unique tourism product both in the domestic and overseas markets. The campaign will generate widespread publicity for the luxury trains as well as the destination visited, by way of blogs, videos and photos published by the Bloggers on their experiences of their  journey. Needless to say this initiative would benefit the railways and the Luxury Train Operators to a large extent.

The Tourism Secretary interacting with international and domestic bloggers at Safdarjung Railway Station in New Delhi

In order to give a major boost for promotion of India’s Luxury Trains, Smt. Rashmi Verma, Secretary (Tourism), Shri Suman Billa, Joint Secretary (Tourism) and Smt. Meenakshi Sharma, Additional Director General (Tourism), Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and other officials of the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India visited the Safdarjung Railway Station today (07/02/2018) for an interaction with the domestic and international Bloggers and see them off on their journey on the Palace on Wheels.    

The Railway Board, the State Governments of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and  Karnataka and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) are proactively promoting this Luxury segment both in the domestic and overseas markets and are actively supporting the campaign by hosting the bloggers on their trains.