Calcutta, Oct. 29: The tourism department has taken a leaf out of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s book and turned to a top ad agency to do for Bengal tourism what global image guru Wally Olins is expected to do for Brand Bengal.

“This is the initiation of a process. We are looking forward to a brand-building exercise for tourism with the help of a consultant. We have held a preliminary discussion with one such agency,” tourism minister Manab Mukherjee told The Telegraph following a meeting with Ogilvy and Mather’s country head (discovery and planning), Madhukar Sabnavis.

O&M, as the agency is better known, brings to the table decades of expertise in advertising, including Madhya Pradesh Tourism’s successful Hindustan Ka Dil Dekho campaign. The agency is also responsible for promoting Gujarat with Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador.

Minister Mukherjee said O&M and other potential consultants would be first tasked to draw up a concept around which his department would build a brand strategy.

“The state government has already hired Wally Olins’s Saffron Brand Consultants to boost Brand Bengal. We thought it would be nice if our department could do something on similar lines for the state’s tourism. We are on the lookout for newer ways to make Bengal a more attractive destination for tourists,” he added.

In 2009, Bengal was ranked ninth among the “preferred destinations” of domestic tourists, having hosted over 2.05 crore domestic travellers (see chart).

With a share of barely 3.2 per cent, the state was way behind the top three states — Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu — that together garnered over 61 per cent of the tourism pie.

Bengal’s share of overseas arrivals was better with a count of over 11.8 lakh guests and a ranking of fifth in the foreign-tourist stakes. The ranking, however, flatters to deceive. With only 8.6 per cent of the foreign tourists visiting India coming to Bengal, the state hosted less than half the number that went to Tamil Nadu, the topper with 17.3 per cent.

Those who come to Bengal despite everything do so because of private initiatives. There is little or no effort by the government to promote the state and provide better facilities to its guests.

“A lot needs to be done to take the state to the top three preferred destinations, both in the domestic and foreign tourism segments. That’s where private expertise comes in,” said an official of the tourism department.

Mukherjee insisted that his meeting with O&M honcho Sabnavis was not the first initiative to bring a degree of professionalism into tourism promotion. “There have been similar projects earlier. We had hired McKinsey for a similar exercise,” he added.

The 15-minute meeting last evening was arranged by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

“Piyush Pandey, the India chief of O&M, would be coming down around the middle of next month to take things forward. Both parties are quite interested in seeing this through,” said Manab Pal, the chairman of the CII’s subcommittee on tourism.

“The state has earmarked Rs 120 crore for the development of tourism over two years and we need more of that,” said T.VN. Rao, the managing director of the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation. According to Rao, tourism needed to be more organised for a start. “For instance, in Delhi, there are around 285 tour operators registered with the government. In Bengal, there are only three,” he added.

So how does one promote Bengal tourism? “I have been asked this time and again. There are so many ways to do it. ‘Bengal — welcome to civilised culture’ could be a tagline,” said brand expert Sabnavis. “In my opinion, Bengal is the most civilised part of India.”

Maybe it needs to be the most market-savvy now.