Narendra Modi did in style, what Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee couldn?t.

Taking a cue from Gujarat?s success in marketing Navratri, the state tourism department organised a party on the Hooghly during this year?s Puja to attract tourists from India and abroad.

For a nominal fee, revellers could enjoy a puja aboard a steamer, eat Bengali delicacies and exchange notes with local novelists, singers and cultural icons.

The Rs 2-lakh river party, however, didn?t prove much of a draw.

?A steamer party cannot get you far. We must think big, plan big and act big while marketing Durga puja. But we have neither the resources nor the attitude,? said tourism minister Dinesh Dakua on Sunday.

?Enough people took the trips that we organised to the pandals, but we cannot call the programme a success because there was not much of a response from foreigners,? said a West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation official.

?We are not disheartened because we realise that a beginning has been made to market the Puja,? he added.

According to reports, around 1,200 people joined the Puja river cruise. Only a few of them were NRIs. In contrast, the Navratri bash in Gujarat pulled in around 700,000, including around 5,000 specially-invited NRIs.

?How can a meal of hilsa, paneer, dal and rice hook tourists from the West?? asked Kumar Mitra, manager of RJ Tradewings, a travel operator.

?Bengal hosts an event that can propel it to a prime position in the international tourism arena. But there is a dearth of ideas,? said Ashwini Kakkar, managing director of Thomas Cook.

?Several prominent Calcuttans enjoy tremendous box office abroad. Why not make use of them. For example, golfer Arjun Atwal, novelist Amitav Ghosh, sitarist Ravi Shankar and actress Aparna Sen could have lent their names to the programme,? suggested Kakkar.