Rajasthan Tourism, September 2026: Two Travel Marts, a World Tourism Day Push and Rs 3,000 Crore Bet on the Middle Market
Two new travel marts, a World Tourism Day conclave, and Rs 3,000-crore push into mid-market tourism marked a busy September for Rajasthan — even as the state's heritage-adoption plan and departmental appointments stayed quiet.
September turned out to be Rajasthan Tourism's busiest trade-and-events month of the year so far. Two brand-new travel marts launched back-to-back, the department used World Tourism Day to unveil a fresh market strategy, and the monsoon finally began pulling out of the state. Here's what actually happened, and what didn't.
Two Travel Marts Open the Autumn Season
Rajasthan Tourism spent September building out its travel marts calendar. The 6th Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart (RDTM) opened at the historic Amer Fort on September 17, running through September 19, with Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and Chief Secretary V. Srinivas in attendance.
For the first time, RDTM brought the events and wedding industry onto its platform, alongside a night polo showcase at the Rajasthan Polo Club Ground on September 18. Right after it closed, the first-ever Marwar Travel Mart opened in Jodhpur, running September 20–22.
Both events, organised jointly by the Tourism Department and the Federation of Hospitality and Tourism of Rajasthan, carried the theme "Stories, Journeys, Smiles" and were built around pushing lesser-known destinations, rural tourism, wildlife, wellness and adventure travel to buyers from across the country.
Tourism Secretary Shuchi Tyagi said today's travellers want real experiences rather than a checklist of famous sights, while FHTR president Surendra Singh Shahpura called for Rajasthan's fairs, festivals and polo heritage to get a bigger place in tourist itineraries.
World Tourism Day: A Local Conclave, a National Push
Rajasthan marked World Tourism Day (September 27) with the Rajasthan Creators Conclave 2026 at the Rajasthan International Centre in Jaipur, where Diya Kumari sat down with travel influencers Shashank Sanghvi, Prakriti Arora and Ashish Sharma to talk about what comes next for the state's tourism image.
The department also gave out its own honours: painter Ramu Ramdev for contribution to art and culture, Kuldeep Chandela for promoting Rajasthan tourism globally, Abhimanyu Singh for rural and farm-to-table tourism, and Shyam Sundar Paliwal for social and village tourism development.
This sat inside a bigger national moment — the Union Ministry of Tourism marked World Tourism Day at Bharat Mandapam in Delhi under the theme "Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism,". The event marked the launch of the National Digital Tourism Stack and Dekho Apna Desh 2.0, both meant to spread tourist footfall more evenly across lesser-known destinations nationwide — a goal that lines up closely with what Rajasthan's own travel marts were pushing the same month.
A ₹3,000 Crore Bet on the Middle Market
On September 23, reports emerged that the state is steering roughly ₹3,000 crore into what's being called the mass-premium tourism segment, aimed at travellers in the ₹35 lakh to ₹70 lakh project-value band rather than ultra-luxury palace hotels.
The idea is to close the gap between expensive heritage properties and plain budget stays, adding hotel capacity in cities beyond the usual Jaipur-Udaipur-Jodhpur circuit and giving hospitality chains a shot at volume rather than just premium bookings.
It's a notable shift in tone from earlier in the year, when the budget's headline projects leaned hard into ultra-luxury zones like Khuri near Jaisalmer — this time the state is chasing corporate events, weddings and everyday travellers instead.
Monsoon's Last Stand
Rain kept interrupting travel plans through early September before finally easing off. The IMD flagged isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall over east Rajasthan on September 5, and again around September 18–19, alongside similar warnings for neighbouring Gujarat and West Bengal.
The southwest monsoon then began its withdrawal from parts of west Rajasthan on September 19 — two days later than the normal date of September 17 — clearing the way for the cooler, greener weeks that mark the start of the state's real festival season.
Heritage Property and Appointments: A Quiet Month
Two threads we've followed all year stayed quiet in September. The "Adopt a Heritage" plan to hand 15 forts, palaces and stepwells to private institutions — sent to the state government for approval back in August — hasn't moved to Cabinet yet, at least not publicly.
And on the leadership side, there was no fresh reshuffle: Shuchi Tyagi continued as Tourism Secretary throughout the month, visible at both travel marts and the World Tourism Day event, giving the department its longest stretch of settled leadership since the churn of late 2025 and early 2026. Neither thread produced real news this month, but both remain open questions worth tracking.
Rajasthan Looks East, to Japan
Rajasthan also took its pitch abroad this month. From September 24–27, the Tourism Department ran a pavilion at Tourism EXPO Japan 2026 in Tokyo, one of Japan's largest travel trade events, inaugurated by India's Ambassador to Japan, Nagma Mohammad Malik.
Tourism Secretary Shuchi Tyagi led the delegation, deliberately pitching Rajasthan beyond its forts-and-palaces image — wildlife tourism, rural life, Buddhist heritage sites, handicrafts, cuisine, destination weddings and the Palace on Wheels train all featured. Joint Director Ajay Kumar Sharma said B2B meetings drew strong interest from Japanese operators in solo travel, Ranthambore's wildlife circuit and lesser-known regions like Shekhawati.
The outreach is backed by real momentum: Japanese tourist visits to Rajasthan climbed from 4,659 in 2022 to 25,250 in 2025, roughly 5.4 times the 2022 level, with several Japanese operators expressing interest in joining the Great Indian Travel Bazaar 2027.
India Climbs the Rankings, and Investors Take Notice
The national picture this month was mixed but improving on the metrics that matter long-term. The Ministry's India Tourism Data Compendium 2026 showed foreign tourist arrivals down 8.1 percent to 91.49 lakh and forex earnings down 9.5 percent to $31.69 billion, dropping India to 22nd globally for arrivals — but domestic tourist visits hit 428.55 crore in 2025, more than six times 2021 levels, and tourism still supports 8.46 crore jobs at 5.22 percent of GDP.
Against that, India climbed to 31st of 160 economies on the WEF's Travel & Tourism Development Index, up from 65th in 2014, ranking first worldwide for length of foreign-tourist stay and fourth for airport connectivity. At Bharat Mandapam on World Tourism Day, Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat set a goal of lifting tourism's GDP share to 10 percent by 2047 and flagged the ₹28,840 crore Modified UDAN connectivity push.
A CBRE-ASSOCHAM report released September 30 backed the growth story with hard numbers: national hotel occupancy rose to 64.1 percent in 2025 from 42 percent in 2021, Jaipur itself ran at 62–67 percent, and the report named the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway corridor through Jaipur-Ranthambore-Sariska and wildlife lodges near Ranthambore as emerging investment bets directly relevant to Rajasthan.
What's Coming Next
Rajasthan's festival calendar now has firm dates. Jodhpur RIFF, the Mehrangarh Fort roots-music festival, turns 20 this year and runs October 22–26, bringing over 250 folk musicians together with international artists from a dozen countries. The Marwar Festival follows almost immediately after, on October 24–25, also in Jodhpur.
Pushkar then takes over in November, with the Pushkar Camel Fair running November 17–24 around Kartik Purnima — still the single biggest draw on the state's cultural calendar, and this year it falls close enough to RIFF and Marwar that Jodhpur and Pushkar together could anchor a six-week stretch of back-to-back tourism.
Two specific things from this month are also worth tracking into October: whether the 15-monument heritage-adoption list, still sitting with the state government since August, actually reaches Cabinet, and whether the ₹3,000 crore mid-market tourism push announced September 23 produces named project sites rather than just a budget figure.
Bottom Line By Fort In Rajasthan
September was Rajasthan Tourism's most event-heavy month of the year: two travel marts, a World Tourism Day conclave tied to a national digital push, and a real shift in strategy toward the middle of the market. What didn't happen mattered too — no Cabinet movement on heritage adoption, and no change at the top of the department. Both are due for an update before the year is out.