Delhi World Book Fair to get bigger in 2016

New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS) The aggressive and smart marketing and communication strategies of the organisers of the Delhi World Book Fair 2015 have managed to hit the bull's eye when it comes to footfalls, but the team is already "thinking big" for the next edition where China will be the guest country at this annual business-to-business event.

"You know when the country is China, everything has to be big. They like going big, so wait for the next year when everything will be big," Kumar Samresh, public relations officer of the National Book Trust (NBT), told IANS.

The NBT in association with the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) organises this fair at Pragati Maidan. This year Singapore is the guest country and South Korea is the focus country.

Without revealing many details, Samresh told IANS that this year the organising team was extremely aggressive to increase "visibility" of the fair.

"Around two years back, we realised people would land at the fair mostly during last days and it too was because they were being told by someone. So we took notice of this and decided to promote aggressively almost a month in advance," he said.

"And this is the reason why there hasn't been any effect on the footfall despite Arvind Kejriwal's swearing-in ceremony (as Delhi chief minister) and the India-Pakistan match. We almost crossed 75,000 footfall during the busy weekend," he added.

With each year, challenge to host a book fair on such a massive scale that cuts across languages, states and countries and genres like crime, self-help, mythology, spirituality, religion, poetry, education, competition books, academics or anything under the sun.

This year, the fair has around 2,100 stalls, 1,100 exhibitors from India and 30 participating countries.

"It is tough job and the moment this fair will end, we will start working for the next year. And as said before it is going to be an extravagant affair," said Samresh, adding around 200 members of the team work extensively to make this fair a success.