Rajasthan’s tourism department has been organising events and hosting meetings to make the desert state a hub of destination weddings ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a call for ‘Wed in India’. The state is already hosting about 1.2 to 2 million weddings a year, as people from various parts of the country as well as the world come here to tie the knot.
Apart from havelis — which double up as wedding venues — and grand hotels, marriage gardens too have emerged as an attractive option. There are over 13,000 marriage gardens in the state which regularly host big fat weddings. But unlike established hotels, they are yet to make their presence felt in the state’s decision making events.
Mohanlal Agarwal, President of the Marriage Garden Association, Rajasthan, said, “We are usually not informed about the government programs organised to promote destination weddings.”
“We are not invited to such programs. If we also get a chance to participate in these programs, we can give suggestions to the government for every problem related to land and its solution,” Agarwal said.
Gaurav Khandelwal, owner of a travel agency, claimed, “Three to four big events have been organised by the department (tourism) so far, but yes some of the stakeholders like tent dealers, and marriage garden owners among others were not invited.”
Bhawani Shankar Mali, General Secretary of All Wedding Industries Federation Rajasthan, said that the government does not consider us stakeholders.
“For them, only the hotel owners are stakeholders. In every city of the state, only 8-10 out of 100 hotels have space available for destination weddings,” Mali said.
He claimed that 70-80 per cent of the weddings take place in marriage gardens.
Talking about Jaipur, Mali said, “Only 15-20 hotels will have space where big weddings with a gathering of 700-1,000 can be organised. Very few hotels have big-size banquet halls. Usually, hotels have banquet halls where weddings with a gathering of 200-1,000 people can be held. If weddings larger than this are held here, it becomes quite congested.”
Mali said that now marriage garden owners are also providing facilities like hotels in their gardens. There is no shortage of space in the marriage gardens built for royal weddings in the state in the last five years.
“Unless we are invited to conferences related to weddings by the tourism department and our suggestions are taken, the move to boost destination weddings will not fetch any results,” he said.
Mali said, “Out of about six million weddings, 25 per cent are low budget. 50 per cent are medium budget roughly up to Rs 10 lakhs, 20 per cent high budget up to Rs 50 lakhs and 5 per cent are between Rs 50 lakhs and Rs 3 crores.”
He said that in some destination weddings, the expenditure reaches Rs 5 to 10 crores. In such a situation, if there is an increase of even 1-2 per cent in destination weddings after efforts from all stakeholders, it will be very beneficial for the economy of Rajasthan.
When contacted for response, a senior state tourism department official said, “We will check with the main organisers. We don’t have any problems if marriage garden representatives are invited as they are major stakeholders. We will try to sort out this matter. We want Rajasthan with its rich heritage, art and culture to become a wedding hub of the country.”
First Published: Sep 19 2024 | 6:47 PM IST
