In the top destination states of Goa, Rajasthan and Kerala, there are no rooms available until the end of March. "A Le Meridien hotel opened just outside of Jaipur [one of the top tourist destinations] as late as December 14 and already you can't get any rooms there," says Prateek Chawla, director of Outbound Travels, a New Delhi-based travel-services company. "India is in the limelight in every sense of the word," says Arjun Sharma, who runs the Heritage Village Club in Goa. "Confidence about everything Indian is pretty high. There are Indians at the top of their professions all over Europe and in the United States and the great Indian economic story is becoming known all over the world."

"European and Western tourists make plans eight or nine months in advance, and when SARS happened was when they were making their plans, so India has benefited from that as well, but that isn't the only reason," says Le Passage's Srinivasan.

A big reason is that India's Ministry of Tourism, with its subtle and charming "Incredible India" campaign is pushing the great Indian story effectively. "Before [this campaign] India was being promoted differently in different countries, if at all. There weren't two or three distinct images. This campaign changed that," says Lavanya Anirudh, an account director at Ogilvy and Mather (India), the ad agency that created the campaign for the Department of Tourism. The Incredible India campaign started in December 2002 and focused on yoga, ayurveda and other spirituality-related concepts.

"Yoga, we own it but have never flaunted it," says Anirudh. "Bali, etc., are flaunting yoga and meditation with their spas. But we have had it for centuries and centuries. And the real ayurveda is in India. We decided to showcase all of that and we layered the entire campaign with spirituality."

When she asks people what they think of the campaign, she says, "I just keep hearing that 'incredible' is absolutely the apt word to describe India. The country isn't perfect; everything isn't laid out for you on a platter. Yes, we have cows on the narrow streets, but this is mixed with some amazing stuff."

"We have spent $5 million on this campaign since December 2002 and plan to keep it going," says Amitabh Kant, a joint secretary at India's Ministry of Tourism. He says the campaign--in print as well as on television—is focusing on Southeast Asia, Australia, Britain, France, Italy and Germany. Almost all experts agree that American tourists are still very nervous and are likely to focus on short-haul trips.

Kant adds that part of the campaign is to focus on domestic infrastructure at India's numerous heritage sites. "We are also now working closely with tour operators and we partner with them to provide brochures and other support. Our diversity is our challenge, and with our focused campaign we have been able to highlight our strengths," he says.

It all seems to be working. India was among the top 10 countries in Conde Nast Traveler’s British edition's annual Readers' Travel Awards 2003, published in October. The magazine's readers preferred India to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in Asia and even Greece and Switzerland in the West. Readers were asked to rate travel facilities and service, including hotels and spas. Raj Vilas, a hotel in Jaipur, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, was voted the est in the Overseas Leisure Hotels Asia category.