#CongregationsIndia: Big Opportunities for Event Planners in Govt Sector in 2021-22 - Khantil Mehta

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Industry Watch | January 8, 2021 | News

Congregations India Andhra Pradesh Tourism Kaushik Mukherji Iram Mirza First Born Collective & Purpose Economy

Kaushik Mukherji, Principal Consultant, Andhra Pradesh Tourism; Iram Mirza, Founder of First Born Collective & Purpose Economy and Khantil Mehta, Co-Founder of Gobananas and Init Design Studios were in conversation with Samit Garg, Co-Founder and Director of E Factor and SkyWaltz on scope of collaboration with the Government on events, tender process, experiential marketing as an emerging trend and more at ‘CONGREGATIONS INDIA: Government, Political & Religious Events Summit’ organised by EVENTFAQS Media on December 24, 2020.

Said no to advertising, created events instead

“The Tourism Department generally relies on advertising to promote its entire geography, and we have picked up multiple offerings of the State of Andhra Pradesh and sub-divided the offerings to create brands out of them. We said no to advertising and instead created experiences in the form of events that will be a reason of perspective for travellers to travel to that destination. I believe that the Government has started to understand the difference between events and experiences and they are now ready to embrace experiences over events,” said Mukherji.

He further added, “When you empanel an event company instead of the tender process, it is with a clear agenda on the location the company has to promote, there’s a long term view to it and comes out as creative and execution of project is both very stable and steady to create experiential events around the location.”

Experiential Marketing, a fast-emerging trend

Speaking about experiential marketing, Mirza said, “We are looking at this fast-emerging trend of people going towards exploratory and authentic experiences as opposed to the entire mandate being destination-specific. Now, governments are slowly understanding what travellers are truly seeking. It is a great time for event management companies as you look for a plethora of experiences as opposed to one event. The target demographics have been divided into sub-groups where crafting experiences and personalising them have opened up revenue streams for the Government. From the opportunity perspective, this time is extremely prolific for event managers as you can create multiple experiences for the destination. The Government has now realised this, which is resulting in collaboration with multiple agencies for creating one experience.”

Consortium for Government events

“The Government process is strictly protocol-based and when you work under a particular protocol, the event companies don’t necessarily qualify according to those parameters. That is why it helps if you have a consortium in place where you have multiple kinds of expertise coming on board to create experiences. This is a good initiative by the event managers to come together and collaborate, which has also helped the Government to offer and create platforms for more interesting experiences,” said Mehta.

Sharing his final thoughts, Mehta said, “I believe there is great potential for event managers to grow with the Government. The mindset needs to change now as 2021 and 2022 are going to see a massive breakthrough of numerous opportunities for event managers in the Government sector.”