India must run consistent, targeted destination marketing if it wants to grow inbound tourism, Sarah Mathews said in remarks reported by Trav Talk.

The statement puts a familiar criticism of Indian tourism policy into sharp terms: the problem is not product but persistence. India has historically marketed itself in bursts — campaign-led pushes tied to budgets or political cycles — rather than through the sustained, market-specific promotion that competing destinations use to hold share in source markets.

Mathews's framing carries weight for sellers of travel on two levels.

First, consistency. Destination marketing works on a compounding basis. Campaigns that stop and restart lose the brand recall that converts intent into bookings. Competing Asian destinations maintain permanent marketing presences in key source markets; an intermittent approach cedes that top-of-mind position, and with it, distribution leverage for the operators, hotels and airlines that depend on inbound demand.

Second, targeting. Generic national campaigns spread budgets thin across all source markets. Targeted marketing concentrates spend on the segments and geographies most likely to convert — the difference between awareness and actual arrivals. For trade partners, that distinction determines where product development, contracting and marketing budgets should follow.

The context matters. India's inbound numbers have long underperformed relative to its cultural inventory and infrastructure investment, and industry voices have repeatedly pointed to the gap between what India offers and how — and how consistently — it is sold abroad.

Mathews's comments add to that pressure. Destination marketing organizations in competing markets treat sustained presence in source markets as table stakes. If India adopts the same discipline, the shift would reshape demand pipelines for inbound operators, DMCs and hotel chains dependent on international arrivals.

Whether India's tourism authorities act on the recommendation — and commit multi-year budgets to targeted campaigns rather than one-off initiatives — will determine if this becomes a turning point for inbound or another entry in a long-running debate.