What Gujarat’s Makar Sankranti tourism surge reveals about marketing-led consumption patterns

On the rooftops of Ahmedabad, five in the morning means something different in mid-January. Families huddle over cups of tea, untangling strings coated with powdered glass, their eyes trained on a sky that hasn't yet turned light. In a few hours, nearly every other activity in the state will shut down. Schools, offices, shops close their doors. The entire rhythm of daily life pauses for kites and sky battles and food shared across terraces. This is Uttarayan, Gujarat's week-long celebration of Makar Sankranti, and over the past few decades, it has quietly become one of India's most intense, short-duration travel and consumption windows.

Gujarat is expecting over 5 lakh visitors for the 2026 International Kite Festival, up from 3.83 lakh in 2025. This January, 135 international kite flyers from more than 50 countries descended on Ahmedabad, with the German Chancellor inaugurating the event alongside India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the real shift is not in the headcount alone. It is in the kind of travel behaviour the festival now triggers and the commercial activity it pulls in its wake, which, at its core, is a deeply community-driven cultural moment.

Yuvrraj Agarwaal, Chief Strategy Officer, Laqshya Media Group, shares, "Gujarat doesn't just celebrate Sankranti. It owns the sky. The biggest driver isn't the festival itself—it's the narrative Gujarat has built around it. For decades, the state didn't just market a holiday; they marketed an emotion."

That emotion has been decades in the making. The seeds were planted with the "Khushboo Gujarat Ki" campaigns, which sold not locations but the sensory experience of being in the state during this time. The International Kite Festival has been hosted in Ahmedabad since 1989, and what began as a regional celebration has been positioned as a global spectacle. 

What makes Sankranti travel predictable

Festival tourism in India has been growing steadily. According to Skyscanner's Cultural Tourism Report, 82% of Indians planned trips around cultural offerings in 2025, with 76% scheduling journeys around major festivals. But Gujarat's Uttarayan stands apart because of how consistently it has been positioned.

"What is driving Sankranti-led tourism in Gujarat today is the convergence of culture with accessibility," says Dr. Vandana Singh, Chairperson – Aviation Cargo at Federation of Aviation Industry in India and Executive at the Foundation for Aviation & Sustainable Tourism. "The festival has become a predictable short-haul travel trigger because air connectivity, road infrastructure and accommodation ecosystems now support high volume short duration travel. Over the years consistent storytelling around kite culture regional food and city led experiences such as Ahmedabad and coastal Gujarat has moved Sankranti from a local ritual to a nationally recognisable travel moment.”

This positioning has been built patiently, not through seasonal bursts alone but by reinforcing the same cultural cues year after year, allowing the festival to mature into a dependable tourism window.

That dependability is backed by infrastructure investments and sustained narrative building. Domestic tourism in India grew to 2,948 million visits in 2024, a 17.5% increase over 2023, according to the Ministry of Tourism's India Tourism Data Compendium 2025. Within that broader growth, festival-led travel has emerged as a distinct pattern. Uttarayan fits squarely into this trend, but with one key difference: it happens in a concentrated five-day window, creating a spike in both travel and on-ground consumption that brands and platforms have learned to plan for.

Govind Bansal, Head of Marketing, Cleartrip, explains what that means for travellers. "Makar Sankranti in Gujarat has evolved from a local festival into a major travel draw because it offers something truly special, a culture you can see, feel and be part of. Today's travellers are not just visiting a destination; they want to experience it as locals do. From kite-filled skies to food, music and community celebrations, Gujarat has consistently told this story in a way that feels welcoming and accessible, which has strengthened its appeal year after year."

The state government has leaned into this positioning aggressively. Gujarat Tourism's official schedule for 2026 spreads the festival across iconic destinations: Rajkot, Surat and Dholavira on January 10; Shivrajpur, Statue of Unity and Vadnagar on January 11; and Ahmedabad from January 12 to 14, with the Sabarmati Riverfront as the centrepiece. They have partnered with Gujarati singer Kinjal Dave, who is performing live in Ahmedabad from January 12 to 14. The rooftops of Ahmedabad become temporarily valuable real estate during this period, with rental prices ranging from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh, kites, food and drinks often included.

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How brands enter without overwhelming

The celebration is terrace-based and social by nature, which means people are outdoors, engaged, and largely unreachable through traditional advertising channels for extended hours. This creates a paradox for brands: maximum consumer presence with minimal receptivity to interruption. The brands that have succeeded in this environment are the ones that solve for immediacy rather than attention.

"During Sankranti, the most active sectors are those that enable participation rather than distraction," Dr. Vandana Singh observes. "FMCG food brands, local retail mobility platforms, media and quick commerce shape the experience by solving for immediacy, including food movement, last-minute needs and contextual visibility."

Quick commerce platforms have become particularly integral to the Sankranti ecosystem. India's quick commerce market grew from $300 million in 2022 to $7.1 billion by fiscal year 2025, a 24-fold increase, according to Cornell's SC Johnson analysis. The sector is projected to reach $35 billion by 2030. During festivals, this infrastructure becomes critical. According to a USDA report on India's e-commerce market, around 35% of consumers spend more on festive supplies, gifts and speciality foods during major festivals. 

Rasesh Vasoya, Co-founder, Aravi Organic, a Gujarat-based brand, describes how the marketing approach has evolved. "Brands operating in Gujarat have gradually adapted to this approach. Rather than loud, standalone campaigns, most Sankranti marketing today is woven into the cultural fabric. FMCG brands introduce festival-relevant packaging, food brands highlight convenience and traditional offerings, telecom players create context-led plans, and apparel brands lean into regional silhouettes and festive colours. The emphasis is less on selling and more on participating in the moment."

Quick commerce and e-commerce platforms enable this participation by removing friction. Platforms like Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto have become integral to the Sankranti ecosystem, especially in urban centres. Vasoya notes that since celebrations are largely terrace-based and social in nature, consumers prefer ordering food and essentials instead of stepping away to shop or cook. Mobility services support the increased movement between celebration hubs, while regional media, including local radio stations and Gujarati digital creators, help keep audiences informed about events, safety, offers and cultural nuances tied to the festival.

For airlines, the approach requires a different sensitivity. Naarayan T V, Chief Marketing Officer, Akasa Air, explains, "Over the years, we've seen that travel moments mirror festive spirit and celebration not because of scale or spend, but because of how well brands understand the cultural nuances behind them. Makar Sankranti, like many Indian festivals, is deeply rooted in local traditions, and shared emotion, and marketing around it has to begin with respect and authenticity. For us at Akasa Air, that means focusing on how we can curate experiences that our guests can connect with."

Akasa Air has created a Makar Sankranti meal onboard that celebrates the spirit of the harvest festival in a way that feels thoughtful, familiar and aligned with how people experience the festival. The intent and effort are to execute an idea in the best possible way rather than picking a channel of visibility. Naarayan adds that they believe in personalising experiences, whether through in-flight initiatives or other activations, and that culturally sensitive marketing is ultimately about listening closely to the audience, adapting communication to context, and ensuring the brand adds quiet value to the journey.

Abhishek Shetty, Marketing Head, Swiggy Instamart & Pvt Brands, frames the consumer truth more bluntly. "Makar Sankranti in Gujarat is not a shopping festival, it is a participation festival. People are not looking to be sold to, they are looking to be enabled. The strongest consumer truth is that celebration here is hyperlocal, time-bound and ritual-led. Brands that work are the ones that quietly remove friction in these moments, whether it is last-minute ingredients, forgotten essentials or regional favourites, without demanding attention. If you interrupt the experience, you lose. If you blend into it and show up exactly when needed, you become part of the celebration."

During this period, platforms like Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto typically see heightened interest in traditional snacks, ready-to-eat meals, beverages, sweets and even night-time dessert options. The demand pattern reflects how the festival is experienced: long hours outdoors, spontaneous gatherings and extended celebrations.

This has led to creative executions that respect the cultural context while serving functional needs. Swiggy Instamart once created an outdoor hoarding that showed a large kite with a rip through the centre, echoing the common scenes of kite-flying duels, paired with the message that customers can get a new kite delivered in ten minutes if theirs gets cut. 

By connecting a familiar festive moment with its core service promise, Swiggy made a memorable splash that people shared and talked about long after they saw it.

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Other brands have taken similar approaches. BigBasket has partnered with influencers to celebrate India's harvest festivals with farm-fresh and organic assortments, highlighting the cultural significance through creators like Vicky Pedia and Saloni, who showcased how its delivery brings Sankranti essentials like til laddoos, revdi and fresh sugarcane straight to customers' doorsteps. 

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HOCCO created an OOH installation in Ahmedabad featuring a life-size ice cream cone reimagined with playful pinwheels forming the scoop, reflecting the spirit of Uttarayan by celebrating movement, colour and joy. 

The channels that enable without interrupting

The media strategy during Uttarayan requires a different approach than standard festival marketing. Yuvrraj Agarwaal from Laqshya Media Group describes it as a shift from visibility to presence. "While digital provides the frequency, Out-of-Home (OOH) provides the stature. The Golden Rule: Don't interrupt the experience. Enhance it. During Makar Sankranti, brands need to pivot to Utility-Based Experiential Marketing.”

Enhancing the experience includes not just advertising, but creating hydration stations for the kite flyers, distributing branded finger guards, caps or sunglasses. 

Agarwaal mentions that brands should use digital to drive people to these on-ground activations, and use OOH to claim dominance in high-traffic transit points like the Sabarmati Riverfront.

Regional media, local radio stations and Gujarati digital creators play an outsized role during this period. Rasesh Vasoya notes that digital and social media, especially Instagram, YouTube Shorts and WhatsApp, work well for real-time engagement, driven largely by regional creators and Gujarati-language content. On-ground activations, when aligned with existing cultural moments like kite festivals or food trails, add experiential value without disrupting the flow of the celebration.

The emphasis is on presence rather than visibility. Govind Bansal from Cleartrip reinforces this, "In a market like Gujarat, on-the-ground experiences and digital storytelling through influencers and other channels work best when they blend into the festive atmosphere rather than compete for attention.”

Bansal continues that culturally sensitive marketing goes beyond language translation. “It means understanding local traditions, regional pride and the growing influence of Tier II and Tier III travellers. National brands that do this well show up as enablers of the celebration, adding value to the moment rather than simply trying to be seen."

Gujarat has managed to build a tourism product around a festival without making the festival feel like a tourism product. That balance, fragile as it is, is what keeps over 5 lakh visitors coming back each January, and what keeps the rooftops of Ahmedabad full from before dawn until well after dark.