NEW DELHI: The Great Indian Wedding, attended by uncles, aunts and the extended family, is now bolstering foreign tourism industries abroad. Malaysia’s tourism department has now flown eight leading Indian wedding planners to exotic resorts and locales in Malaysia to plan Indian weddings there in future.

Two mega Indian weddings of Gujarati businessmen were celebrated in Malaysia recently. Each wedding was attended by about 350 persons from India, including family and friends. In addition to the Indian wedding rituals, the bride and groom also had a Malay wedding ceremony organised by Tourism Malaysia.

“We have realised that this is a great way to promote Malaysia among Indian tourists,” says Bhupesh Kumar, marketing manager of Tourism Malaysia. “The photographs of Indian couples who were married in the traditional Malay way were splashed across the Malay media. It generated a lot of interest,” said Mr Kumar.

But of course, as one would expect, transporting and organising such a huge wedding party abroad is a luxury only the rich can afford. “We are basically targeting the upmarket segment as far as organising these huge weddings is concerned,” says Mr Kumar. “Tourism Malaysia is also working out honeymoon packages for couples wishing to celebrate their honeymoon in Malaysia. The cost is being worked out,” said Mr Kumar.

About 170,000 Indian tourists visited Malaysia last year. Malaysia is also wooing Bollywood as well as the Tamil and Telugu film industries. “Every week a Tamil or Telugu film crew arrives in Malaysia for shooting. We facilitate the process of getting them various government clearances,” he says. —By arrangement with Asianage