Winters in Diu, a tiny Union Territory, will be a hot one with a variety of fascinating and exciting events lined up from December 1 till February next year during world’s longest beach festival ‘Festa Di Diu’.
The first-of-its-kind festival, the two-and-half-month long event— to be inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee aims to promote the UT as a tourist hotspot on the world global tourism map. The Diu administration hopes to create the island into a culturally enriching hotspot for both locals and tourists.
The administration has set up a festival village with 60 luxury beach tents, spa, five-star restaurants, dining and conference space facilities. Diu has 3,000 hotel rooms. A string of programmes has been lined up in addition to water sports, which is available round-the-year. Adventure sports like bungee-jumping, Zip lining and hot air balloon rides, spas, community outreach programmes have also been planned.
Asish Kundra, Administrator of Daman and Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli who was in the Capital recently on the roadshow for the event, said the idea is to create a brand identity for Diu. “We want to give life to the city on the lines of Goa known for its shacks and night life. We are also hoping to attract investment from domestic and foreign business houses in the tourism sector besides others.”
Kundra said, last year, Diu attracted around 17 lakh tourists. “With this initiative we are hoping to attract at least 35 lakh tourists this calender year. This festival is part of a national publicity campaign launched recently to showcase Diu as a favoured tourist destination.”
Shubhra Bhardwaj from Ferriswheel, which is managing the event on behalf of the UT administration said, an entire spectrum of 140 live events with over 300 artistes have been planned over 77 days and noted singers like Benny Dayal, Shreya Ghosal, Hard Kaur and Ankit Tiwari among many others will set the stage on fire.
The event has specially designated themes and events demarcated under four zones-cave, beach, Diu fort and amphitheatre and there will be something for everyone to take away back home, she said adding that every week will be different from the other.
The administration also aims to rope in tourists visiting the Asiatic lion’s abode in Gir and Somnath Temple which are very close to Diu.