20 lakh emails for tour revival mission - Sikkim invites honeymooners and corporate houses

BIJOY GURUNG

A mountain biker in Yumthang in North Sikkim. File picture Gangtok, Feb. 7: Travel agents in Sikkim have sent over 20 lakh email invitations to the snow festival to newly wed couples, corporate offices and tour operators across India and Southeast Asia. The publicity blitzkrieg started on January 5 and the target is around 1 crore emails. The Sikkim Snow and Cultural Festival will be held from February 14 to 29 as part of a mission to regain the state’s image as a favoured tourist destination. Tourism in Sikkim suffered a jolt after the earthquake on September 18. “Eight computer operators are sending around 70,000 e-brochures of the snow festival daily from our office. We are targeting honeymooners, the corporate sector, tour operators and associations of different professions to send the emails,” said Sonam Norgay Lachungpa, the general secretary of the Travel Agents’ Association of Sikkim (TAAS). The festival will be organised by the association with the full backing of the Sikkim government. Snow line tours in areas above 8,000ft such as Lachen, Lachung, Gurudongmar Lake (all in north Sikkim), and Chhangu lake and Nathu-la (in East district) will be conducted as part of the fest. Also on offer are bird and butterfly watching excursions to Dzongu in North Sikkim, Maintam wildlife sanctuary in South district and Pelling in West. Lachungpa said the email had a link to the home page of sikkimsnowfest.com that detailed every activity of the event. “We have tied up with a matrimonial website to get the email addresses of newly married couples and are sending them links to our website. The response is very encouraging as we are getting lots of enquires and feedback from potential tourists. Some of our members have already received bookings for the festival,” said Lachungpa. The president of the association, Lukendra Rasaily, said the organisers wanted to send 1 crore emails by the time the festival kicked off. Adventure sports like mountain biking, trekking, camping, paragliding and kayaking have also been planned across the state as part of the festival. Entertainment programmes like culture shows, food festivals, yak rides and fashion shows have been lined up to woo all kinds of tourists to the state. The association is using an email extractor software to get the email addresses of the targeted sector in India and Southeast Asia. “Once the addresses are extracted, our computer operators start sending the emails to all. Our website is getting thousand hits every day,” said TAAS software consultant Jayant Das. Apart from the email blitzkrieg, the association will also send text messages to about 1 lakh tour agents across the country to promote the festival. “Such kind of mass tourism promotional activity through emails and text messages is being conducted for the first time in the country. Everything is possible because of the teamwork of the travel agents and the support we are getting from the Sikkim government,” said the association president.(Telegraph)