Tourism promotion means careful planning of activities for best communication of products and services to the customer viz. brochures, billboards, newspaper advertisements, hoardings, internet etc. Now a day’s Marketing communication has become important in tourism as competition is increasing and every establishment needs to strengthen their distinctiveness. As we all know that with advancement of technology and social media, the role of marketing has become significant. With globalization and liberalization of economies as well as increasing competition in every sphere of life, marketing became the utmost importance for long run of business and success. The result of any form of successful communication is to increase stakeholder value and drive sales (Kotler et al. 2009).

Potential customers get information through promotion that positively influences what they think of a product / service and convinces them to use its services. In India effective tourism promotion requires high level of skills to respond to increasingly sophisticated market needs. The number of significance of tourism industry in GDP of India, the both Central and the State governments initiates various policies and program to encourage people’s participation in tourism development. Tourism Industry of India has yet not properly developed to its full potential. The research paper briefly lists the major promotional schemes of the Government of India and examines the performance of the Indian tourism industry. The study finally concludes that the marketing and promotional efforts have resulted in improved performance of the tourism industry in India. The present study deals with the need of promotional and marketing strategies for improving the performance of our Indian tourism industry.

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Keywords: Tourism, Marketing Mix, Marketing Strategies, Sales Promotion.