Written by on Jan 15, 2013. Posted in On Location

India to capitalise on Life of Pi movie locations to boost film tourism

India plans to capitalise on shoot locations from Ang Lee’s critically-acclaimed feature Life of Pi to boost regional film tourism. The movie’s story starts in a zoo in India before following Pi’s struggle to survive while adrift in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengali tiger for company.

Using the name Land of Pi, the Indian ministry of culture plans to run monthly competitions with prizes of trips to Puducherry in eastern India and Munnar in the south-west, where the film was partly shot. There will also be special hiking trips marked out so that visitors can explore the locations for themselves.

Johny Abraham George runs Intersight Tours & Travels Cochin and spoke to news agency TTG Asia: “Life of Pi is a beautiful film with images that leave a lasting impression."

I expect the Land of Pi campaign to elicit great interest in south India as an inbound tourist destination.

Johny Abraham George, Intersight Tours & Travels Cochin

He adds: “The locales used have been portrayed aesthetically and should give viewers an attractive preview of our destinations. I expect the Land of Pi campaign to elicit great interest in south India as an inbound tourist destination.”

Virgin Atlantic recently launched a new daily flight between London and Mumbai to cater for increased film tourism demand as more Bollywood productions shoot in the UK. Life of Pi was largely filmed in a specially-built water tank facility in Taiwan where state-of-the-art visual effects were used to realise Pi’s dramatic Pacific odyssey.