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The last time Monaco, the soverign city-state, hosted a big fat Indian wedding, it shipped white horses and elephants from New York Circus. The buses to ferry guests were painted with the names and portraits of the bride and the groom.
A wooden temple imported from India was installed at the “Opera House”. Two top-end luxury hotels — The Hermitage and Hotel De Paris — were fully booked for 630-odd guests. Monaco tourism is now offering Indian tourists “a country for your wedding”.
“We customise everything for the wedding, roads are blocked, special signage installed. The police is also available to us. We are only interested in big-ticket purchases,” said Guillaume Rose, director, Monaco Government Tourist and Convention Authority.
One of the smallest countries in the world, which shares border with France and Italy, Monaco is expecting a 200 per cent increase in the tourist inflow from India in the next three years. The country receives over seven million visitors every year. Although a country-wise break up is not available since most tourists don’t spend the night in Monaco, Indians are among the top five spenders at €600 a day per person as the average expenditure.
“Most Indians who come here chose to stay in our luxuriest of accommodations. India is a prominent market for us,” Rose added. Of a total of 850,000 room nights, 4,718 were generated from India in 2012. From the Grand Prix to billion-dollar yacht cruises. Monaco is positioning itself as the uber-luxury destination.
The country does want to go for mass marketing. Of the 2,500 hotel rooms in the country, 92 per cent are between premium and luxury range. There are no budget accommodations or bed and breakfast facilities available in the country. Weddings aside, Monaco is also betting big on the meetings, incentives, conventions and events from India having hosted various such luxury outings for various information technology companies.
The Monaco tourist and convention bureau also met various production houses of Bollywood to showcase the country through movies. So far they haven’t found anything convincing. “The script has to match the luxury quotient of Monaco, which we have not found yet. Many people wanted to shoot song sequences here, but we are looking for something more substantial,” Rose said. Movies including Ocean’s 12, Iron Man, French productions like Heartbreaker, Priceless have been shot in Monaco.
