Utah Partners With Luxury, Niche Tour Operators To Increase Footfalls From India

In a bid to increase footfalls from India, Utah, a landlocked state in the west of the United States, is collaborating with luxury and niche tour operators to showcase its spectacular landscapes.

Utah is also looking for flexible independent travellers as well as luxury group tours in order to increase the number of footfalls from India.

"We hosted 8,700 visitors from India in 2022, which is 5 per cent higher than 2019. We are making efforts and promoting Utah to attract the well travelled people who are looking for off-beat attractions and activities and target to welcome 11,840 visitors from India in 2027," Utah Office of Tourism Global Markets Director Rachel Bremer told PTI.

Bremer further said, "to reach out to our target audience from India, we are collaborating with luxury and niche tour operators. We are also working with other states in the US to include a few attractions from Utah in their group tour itinerary."

Utah, she said, has been home to many large-scale movie productions in Hollywood and will be happy to collaborate with Bollywood to showcase its spectacular landscapes to Indians.

Movies including The Searchers, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Indiana Jones, High School Musical are among many movies and series that were filmed in Utah.

"We will be happy to assist and subsidise production houses to be part of a movie or series to showcase the amazing scenic beauty of Utah. This will also help us to promote Utah among Indians, who have an emotional connection with Cinema," Bremer added.

She said, even as the number of footfalls from India is very small at present, in terms of spending, Indians are among the top 10 spenders and on an average spend USD 2,391.95 per visitor per trip.

"Indians are high value visitors and are a bit below Australia and China, but much higher than many European nations," Bremer added.

According to data, the top five source market of Utah in terms of number of footfalls is Canada followed by France, Mexico, Germany and France.