Government and Cultural Events Around Temples Make Up a Strong Rs 1200 Cr Market: Giresh V Kulkarni

Industry Watch | December 17, 2020 | Interview

Giresh V Kulkarni Temple Connect Congregations India EEMA Tagglabs

With the virtual ‘CONGREGATIONS INDIA: Government, Political & Religious Events Summit’ by EVENTFAQs Media on December 24, 2020 approaching, we reached out to co-curators of the event for their valuable views on the scale of Government events as well as the expertise required by event industry professionals to manage them.

In this interview, a co-curator of the #CongregationsIndia event, Giresh V Kulkarni, Founder, Temple Connect, a platform that connects pilgrims to holy shrines digitally, shares his insights.

How Government events have grown
Talking about Government events in India and how the segment is growing, Giresh V Kulkarni says, “The events industry in India has grown enormously over the past 25 years of my career in this sector, largely driven by the inception of events around festivals, celebrations, weddings and occasions, and temple management-driven events of the past maturing into professionally managed events of the present. Government events and traditional cultural events with temples make up a very strong sector with a Rs 1200+crore market or even more, with a strong element of protocol, process and promotions as the key to it.”

“Events related to every city, district, State with protocol have a huge need and support from the events fraternity, right from high profile delegation visits by international dignitaries to local temple mahotsavas - this sector is growing multifold and in large volumes,” he adds.

Potential of political events
“Political rallies are branding and promotional initiatives by any political organization or aspiring candidates to gain maximum mileage. Be it a brand in the corporate sector or a political one, both need the experience and reach of the events fraternity to gain mileage and hassle-free management. This is a huge opportunity of over Rs 10K crore, but has its own limitations on the financial management part, leading to slow participation from event managers and the trade,” comments Kulkarni.

Ocean of opportunities
Believing that there are prospects of huge growth and huge profitability for all parties if interfaced and managed well, Kulkarni adds, “The potential is large in terms of volume of work, commercial exposure and uniqueness in the type of event - be it delegations or management, to sports events and conventions, to events like Kumbh Mela with millions of visitors - it’s an ocean of opportunities to align with.”

“Government interface and liaisoning skills with maximum patience to handle the officials and processes as per their style are key to any Government event. The tendering tasks are very well organized in the Government sector and bidding with the right paperwork is key to a huge marketplace in the Government events sector,” explains Kulkarni.  

Government sector can offer more work
Agreeing that large scale congregations will return faster in the Government and political space, as compared to corporate and private events, Kulkarni adds, “The corporate sector can pull back budgets based on their priorities and trade limitations pre- and post-pandemic, but the Government sector work always multiplies. During the pandemic, Government organizations used multiple event companies for better management of resources for COVID zone promotion and awareness. Temple authorities too use a lot of events industry support, be it Ayodhya Mandir launch or Kumbh Mela or even conventions or summits. So, the learning is that the Government sector will offer more and more work if we can align with their pre-requisites well.”

Detailing is very high and specific
Talking about his own experience of working on Government events, Kulkarni says, “Working with Government organisations, international trade delegations and organising high-level visits to India for UK, Netherlands delegations, or an UNIDO delegation visit to the South-east Asian market, gave me great experience and exposure. Additionally, the element of detailing is very high and specific when it comes to protocol-based events and there is huge scope to work with such events for inbound and outbound opportunities.”

To register for Congregations India, click here - https://bit.ly/3gkwLVh

For more details contact: Ramesh Patil: ramesh@eventfaqs.com

In this interview, Giresh V Kulkarni, Founder, Temple Connect, a platform that connects pilgrims to holy shrines digitally,andalso a co-curator of the #CongregationsIndia event, shares his insights.

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