Italy luring Bollywood for tourism promotion

From the 1979 blockbuster The Great Gambler to Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008), Kambhakt Ishq (2009), Rockstar (2011) and War (2019) and from the canals of Venice, the trulli of Alberobello to the colourful towns of the Amalfi Coast- Indian (Bollywood) movie makers seem to have always shown a special love for Italy. Italian government, on its parts, also, has all along tried to woo Bollywood filmmakers. It suits their purpose of promoting various parts of Italy as tourism destinations. Bollywood plays a very important role in the lives of Indians, especially the actors and actresses. Movie is a force that is capable of driving the decision of consumers and little wonder therefore that the Italian government always preferred being supportive of Bollywood to make Italy an important shooting destination for the industry. The pristine beauty, the buzzing streets, pasta pizza have all along been there as offers from the Italian side, what are new on offers include various financial sops, financial support (of paying back 30-40 per cent of total spent on movie making in Italy) so on and so forth. Post Covid-19, Italian government is harping on these to hardsell various locations to Indian movie makers. Several consecutive events in Kolkata over the last few days organised by the local Italian consulate have been a case in point. While the northern part of Italy is marked by its fast paced lifestyle, the southern part is enhanced by the old-world charm with little villages, crumbling ruins and widespread beaches. The Alps too are one of the major tourist attractions there. The initiatives of Gianluca Rubagotti, the Consul General of Italy in Kolkata have not been without solid business reasons.

Indian film industry is the largest is the world in terms of number of films it produces and theatrical admissions. On an average around 1500-2000 films are made per year in our country in 20 different languages. In terms of revenue, the industry had a gross realisation of $2.1 billion couple of years ago, which has grown at 11 per cent CAGR reaching nearly $4 billion by 2021, under prevailing scenario. The domestic box office contributes majority of the revenue, representing 74 per cent of the total industry. While, Indian Film Industry is dominated by Bollywood which contributes 43 per cent of the revenue, regional films contribute 50 per cent. Within the regional film industry, Tamil and Telugu are the largest segments comprising approximately 36 per cent of net box office revenues followed by Bengali, Kannada, and Malayalam films.

Mind you that Italy is not the only country trying to lure in India movie makers, Italian government's recent moves coincided with the India International Film Tourism Conclave, where Film Tourism Boards of as many as 20 countries including Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi, Krakow, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Norway, Oman, Panama, Poland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Yas Island, to name a few, are participating to meet, interact, understand, and offer sops to Indian filmmakers to shoot in their respective countries. Significantly, post covid, international shoots are back with a vengeance, almost every production house is having a busy slate with multiple projects, making up for the 2 years lost due to the pandemic.