Skift Take
With India’s field workplace anticipated to hit $2.8 billion by 2028, Bollywood is a blockbuster journey agent in disguise. It turns reel magic into actual tourism – making locations into superstars.
By Peden Doma Bhutia | March 2, 2025
It’s basic Bollywood: A prepare whistles via the Swiss Alps, the kohl-eyed heroine leans out, her lengthy black hair catching the breeze. The good-looking hero watches, love-struck, as a soulful melody performs within the background. This scene could be the epitome of a film magic romance, however it’s additionally postcard-perfect vacation spot advertising and marketing.
Bollywood — because the Hindi movie business is named (reluctantly by some) — has develop into an financial power within the international tourism business, turning movie places into journey locations in a single day. Whether or not it’s Raj Kapoor’s Russia, Yash Chopra’s Switzerland, or Zoya Akhtar’s Spain, Indian filmmakers have turned overseas landscapes into objects of want. And with the rise of India’s touring center class, everybody needs vacationers from the world’s most film-obsessed market.
The numbers again it up. The worldwide movie tourism market is projected to achieve $136 billion by 2033 and 52% of Indian vacationers mentioned they’re largely influenced by tv and movies, usually selecting to go to locations they’ve seen on display screen, in response to Skyscanner’s 2024-2025 Horizons report.
Exploring India’s energy, affect, and evolution
March 17-18, 2025 – DELHI
“Indian and UAE vacationers are much less all for guidebooks,” Skyscanner mentioned. “Indian, South Korean and UAE vacationers like getting their inspo (inspiration) from movie and TV reveals.”
Zoya Akhtar’s 2011 movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara proved a robust commercial for Spanish tourism. Inside a yr of its launch, the variety of Indian guests to Spain almost doubled to greater than 60,000, in response to a FICCI report. Constructing on that momentum, Spain and India signed a movie co-production settlement in 2012. By 2015, Spain was welcoming 85,000 vacationers from India.
India’s home places profit too. In 2009, the movie 3 Idiots turned Ladakh’s Pangong Lake right into a must-visit spot. In the meantime, Ramoji Rao Movie Metropolis — famed for each manufacturing and tourism — in India’s Hyderabad attracts a mean of 1.5 million guests yearly, advisory agency KPMG mentioned in a movie tourism report final yr.
Locations and journey corporations are catching on. They’re dashing to do offers with Bollywood — signing up the largest stars and contracting with manufacturing corporations.
From Romance to Journey: Evolving Narratives in Tourism Advertising and marketing
For tourism boards, the connection between Bollywood and Indian vacationers is just too invaluable to disregard. Methods have developed past passive location placements to full-fledged advertising and marketing partnerships with dynamic journey narratives.
Take Switzerland – already a favourite vacation spot for Indian vacationers — however seen principally as a romantic vacation vacation spot. Nice for honeymoons or household holidays. The tourism board there wished to alter that. So it signed Ranveer Singh as model ambassador in 2016 to showcase different facets of Switzerland, resembling its out of doors sights, journey sports activities, and gastronomy.
“We had an especially efficient three-year marketing campaign with Singh the place we managed to achieve all our goals,” mentioned Ritu Sharma, Deputy Director and Advertising and marketing Head — India at Switzerland Tourism. “Our in a single day figures grew, and a brand new area, the Lake Geneva space, noticed a 70% rise in Indian guests put up the marketing campaign.”
Sharma acknowledged that it may be tough to attach outcomes to a selected marketing campaign.
The pattern isn’t restricted to one-off successes. Switzerland has leveraged this cultural connection for many years, and the impression of Bollywood’s mushy energy is so important that Interlaken has movie director Yash Chopra’s statue. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was shot partly on the Titlis mountain and there’s nonetheless a cutout of actors Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol.
Switzerland has additionally been aggressively integrating Bollywood celebrities into structured campaigns. As Sharma mentioned, “Indians are actually asking for actions like paragliding and jetboating in very large numbers in Interlaken and the curiosity in Montreux nonetheless stays even 5 years after the (Ranveer Singh) marketing campaign.”
Exploring India’s energy, affect, and evolution
March 17-18, 2025 – DELHI
Dubai Tourism’s take care of Bollywood famous person Shah Rukh Khan for the BeMyGuest marketing campaign in 2016 racked up over 20 million views inside simply two weeks of its launch.
“Bollywood has accomplished quite a bit for Dubai,” CEO of Dubai Tourism Issam Kazim mentioned on the Skift India Summit final yr. “It’s extra than simply SRK (Shah Rukh Khan) as nicely. Dubai was all the time talked about positively by India, there’s a constructive synergy. SRK has that natural vitality. There’s no act that he likes Dubai — he genuinely does.”
Final yr, actors and father-daughter duo Saif Ali Khan and Sara Ali Khan starred in Dubai’s “A Complete New You” tourism marketing campaign. Neighboring emirate Abu Dhabi has signed on Ranveer Singh as its model ambassador. Dubai even has a theme park devoted to the style: Bollywood Parks Dubai.
Motels And OTAs Leap In
Hospitality manufacturers are following swimsuit and getting much more inventive. Hilton’s affiliation with actors Deepika Padukone and Sidharth Malhotra extends past standard endorsements.
“The target was to craft significant, genuine alternatives for the chosen celebrities to genuinely interact with our model,” mentioned Manish Tolani, VP & Business Director, South Asia, Hilton.
“Our intent is obvious — we need to make these partnerships really feel genuine, private, and memorable.”
Simply the announcement of Deepika Padukone garnered over 1.3 million natural social engagements and generated greater than 30 million impressions final yr for Hilton. In line with Tolani, it helped the lodge firm “win new followers and draw our manufacturers ever nearer to Indian prospects.”
Exploring India’s energy, affect, and evolution
March 17-18, 2025 – DELHI
“Bollywood’s distinctive capacity to resonate throughout demographics and geographies in India makes these collaborations extremely rewarding,” mentioned Tolani. “The affect of Deepika Padukone and Sidharth Malhotra extends far past the silver display screen, and it has been pivotal in considerably elevating Hilton’s model visibility, connecting us with audiences in ways in which transcend conventional promoting.”
Tolani mentioned these associations have led to a noticeable surge in direct site visitors to Hilton.com and downloads of the Hilton Honors app.
On the worldwide entrance, the partnerships have piqued curiosity in key locations such because the Maldives, the Center East, and Southeast Asia. This has translated into elevated leisure bookings and MICE (Conferences, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) leads.
In 2023, Accor partnered with Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif to star in its newest marketing campaign of ALL-Accor Dwell Limitless, the lodge model’s life-style loyalty programme.
India’s journey panorama is being reshaped by its rising center class, which makes up 31% of the inhabitants as we speak and is anticipated to achieve 60% by 2047. With 65% of the inhabitants below 35, journey aspirations are greater than ever, and their favourite pastime: watching motion pictures. Bollywood acts because the conduit between these goals and actuality.
The Indian luxurious traveler as we speak is youthful, digital-first, and extremely influenced by content material, Tolani mentioned.
Speaking about selecting actors Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt as model ambassadors, MakeMyTrip’s chief advertising and marketing officer and chief enterprise officer — company, Raj Rishi Singh, mentioned, “By tapping into their robust enchantment amongst millennials and Gen Z, we bridge conventional journey preferences with trendy aspirations.”
In line with Singh, MakeMyTrip‘s campaigns deal with real-life journey experiences and relatable challenges, positioning its merchandise as enjoyable, participating, and effortlessly helpful.
Rewriting the Script With Social Media
For anybody watching the movie business of late, it’s in a profound state of flux. With the rise of social media and journey influencers, Bollywood’s grip on vacation spot advertising and marketing is evolving.
Sharma from Switzerland Tourism acknowledged this shift: “Bollywood had a stronger affect within the ’90s and early 2000s. In the present day, vacationers use a number of sources for inspiration.”
To maintain this relevance, locations are incorporating Bollywood extra strategically. Switzerland, for instance, solely collaborates with movies that meaningfully combine the nation.
“We are actually collaborating solely with these movies the place Switzerland will be showcased in the way in which we want to put it up for sale to travellers — storylines need to be tailored to locations, locations and highlights have to be talked about in scripts and the viewer ought to be capable to do the actions proven within the motion pictures,” Sharma mentioned.
MakeMyTrip’s Singh famous the evolution prior to now decade. “Our long-standing affiliation with actors Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt goes past conventional endorsements. We now have not solely leveraged their personalities but in addition pushed inventive boundaries to current them in refreshing and unconventional methods.. highlighting how MakeMyTrip affords sensible options.”
Exploring India’s energy, affect, and evolution
March 17-18, 2025 – DELHI
And when Bollywood celebrities are usually not taking pictures movies they might market a vacation spot via social media. This affect is obvious in locations like Fiji, the place a single celeb go to can work wonders.
CEO of Fiji Tourism, Brent Hill, mentioned, “The publicity we gained from actors Rakulpreet Singh and Jackie Bhagnani’s go to was large — we completely plan to have interaction with extra Bollywood celebrities.” Hill additional defined why this works nicely for Fiji, “We don’t have the funds to advertise in India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, however a well-executed marketing campaign just like the Rakul marketing campaign can lengthen our attain considerably.”
The way forward for Bollywood tourism advertising and marketing lies in multi-platform storytelling, the place influencers, digital content material, and celebrities create an ecosystem that conjures up and converts vacationers. Whether or not it’s the following blockbuster movie set in an unique location or a social media-driven journey marketing campaign, Bollywood’s position in international tourism isn’t fading — it’s simply evolving.
For locations, the problem is to combine this magic right into a broader, digital-first technique that clicks with the following technology of Indian vacationers.
Peden Doma Bhutia is Asia Editor at Skift. Contact her at pdb@skift.com
Graphics by Beatrice Tagliaferri
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