Mysuru: Now is the time to attract maximum tourists to Dasara and the District Administration has to get on to aggressive marketing of Dasara attractions, said tourism stakeholders from city. According to them, the publicity campaigns for Dasara must start immediately and should not be restricted to Mysuru alone. Information dissemination must be far and wide, they said.

Speaking to SOM this morning, C.A. Jayakumar of Mysuru  Travels Association said that tourists must be made to stay for a longer period in Mysuru. “We must ensure that all the Dasara events are properly publicised. Every year, a host of events are held and most of them are not given wide publicity. We must publicise the events, facilities like parking, date, time and venue of the event, availability of tickets or passes,” he said.

Advance publicity to many events can be given right away so that tourists can plan their itinerary. “There are many star category hotels in Mysuru where the National leaders have stayed. Such hotels must be encouraged to carry out tourism promotion along with their brands. Brand building will help hotels grow their business and at the same time it helps attract more and more tourists,” he opined.

Another stakeholder, B.S. Prashanth from Mysuru  Travels Association regretted that the publicity for the annual event had not yet started. “There is no information for tourists as of now. They must get to know of the attractions early so that they can plan their trip,” he said.

Advocating a “Single Pass System” for all Dasara events except the famed Jumboo Savari, Prashanth said that tourist kiosks must be set up near Hunsur, Srirangapatna and other entry points to Mysuru where the tourists can have advance information about what’s on offer in Mysuru.

As part of publicity campaigns, the District Administration can introduce publicity materials on flights that operate on routes such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Kochi. Such information and the availability of flights to Mysuru can go a long way in attracting tourists to Mysuru, he said.