To make Goa the number one adventure hub in the country, Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) is offering several adventure sports such as river rafting, scuba diving, parasailing, paragliding, and hot air ballooning. Nikhil Desai, MD, GTDC, shares, “We have introduced India’s second highest bungee jumping facility at Mayem Lake and have tied up with reputed private operators to ensure safety.” A full-fledged family theme park is also in the offing here. Desai also adds, “In addition, we are introducing several new tourism facilities like an underwater submarine, giant wheels, and bike tourism circuits that would allow tourists to hire bikes and go to nearby places like Hampi. A hanging restaurant, which would go up to 100 metres in the sky, is also in the offing, and would allow people to get a great view of Goa while enjoying their food.”

India has a lot of potential for festival tourism, said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his montly radio programme Mann ki Baat. Modi also said that India presented immense possibilities for festival tourism as it is called ‘land of festival’. He added, “We must try to popularise our festivals such as Holi, Diwali, Onam, Pongal and Bihu and invite people from other states and countries too to join the festivities.”

Senior IAS officer Arvind Singh has been appointed as the chairman of Airports Authority of India and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu will head the National Highways Authority of India as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre. Singh is at present working in his cadre-state Maharashtra. He has been appointed as the chief of AAI in the rank and pay of additional secretary, an order issued by the personnel ministry said.

India, with 221,000 cruise passengers and a growth of 28.1%in 2018 as compared to 2017, is ranked at sixth position in Asia, when it comes to number of cruise passengers, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). China topped the list with 2,357,000 passengers, despite a decline of 1.6% from 2017. It was followed by Taiwan with 391,000 passengers (+4.7%) and Singapore with 373,000 passengers (+39.9%). Japan ranked 4th with 266,000 passengers (+4.5%)  and Hong Kong ranked 5th with 250,000 (+8.6%).

The countries that have seen the most flight bookings to India for the period around Diwali are the United States (32,828), the United Kingdom (22,663) and the United Arab Emirates (20,688) until October 14, 2019, according to an analysis conducted by Travelport. This data is derived from Travelport’s interpretation of relevant MIDT data. It reflects bookings made as of 14 October 2019 through GDS only, a channel primarily used by travel agents, for flights to India (the destination) between 24 and 30 October 2019. Additional bookings will have been made directly with airlines, which may or may not also have a GDS presence. On a volume basis, the Americas saw the most travellers flying into India (49,157; or 32% of total bookings made in the top 10 countries), followed closely by the Middle East (44,831; 29%). Europe (30,354; 19%) and the Asia Pacific (29,093; 19%) rounded out the list.

Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in September 2019 were 7,50,514 as compared to 7,19,845 in September 2018, registering a growth of 4.3%, according to statistics revealed by Ministry of Tourism (MOT). The FTAs during the period January- September 2019 were 76,33,454 as compared to 74,63,664 in January- September 2018 registering a growth of 2.3%. The percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals in India during September, 2019 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (27.86%) followed by United States (10.50%), UK (6.64%), Sri Lanka (4.18%), China (4.13%), Australia (3.45%), Malaysia (3.39%), Japan (2.65), Germany (2.34%), Canada (2.30%), Singapore (1.94%), France (1.84%), Nepal (1.81%), Korea (Rep.) (1.38%) and Afghanistan (1.29%).

India is expected to receive as many as 1.07 million Chinese travellers by 2025, owing to the year-on-year increase in arrivals, according to a report by China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI). The growth rate for India will outperform the total Chinese outbound growth rate with a cumulative increase of 280 per cent between 2018 and 2015. In 2020, the total arrival numbers would reach more than 410,000 and touch the 500,000 mark in 2021. Year 2023 is expected to see further increase in arrivals, touching 730,000, while in 2025, in keeping with the trend, India is expected to receive as many as 1.07 million Chinese tourists.

Travel MiCE Show, this year, has been scheduled for December 14 & 15 at the Trident Chennai. The show is a platform to meet over 65 buyers from across the country. The show will entail pan-India corporate meetings on day 1 and interactions and meetings with MiCE specialists on Day 2.  The show will also conduct over 1800 meetings over two days.

Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, informed that the theme of the Indian pavilion which will be promoted by the Ministry at WTM London would be, ‘Find the Incredible You’, inspired by the award-winning campaign of the ministry released globally a few months ago. The campaign focusses on digital and social media and the promotion of niche tourism products of the country. It focuses on transformative experiences, brought alive through unique storytelling in the format of autobiographies of travellers, with the tagline ‘Find the Incredible You’. “Against the earlier theme of just Incredible India, this time the theme has moved to ‘Find the Incredible You’. This essentially is the philosophy of India. There are just so many things about India, which we feel that tourists from all over the world should be coming and discovering about themselves, weather it could be realm of Yoga or wellness or adventure or heritage or just disappearing into thousand year old history that our country is able to showcase. We are also celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi this year. This is going to be one significant part of the Indian pavilion at WTM London. Other thing, which we are going to promote is the new destinations such as the Statue of Unity situated in Gujarat, which is also the tallest statue in the world. There are other tourism destinations developing around the statue, which would also remain as one significant theme of our pavilion,” Brar explained. Apart from the different stakeholders of the industry, including state governments, wellness organisations, tour operators and hotels are also participating in WTM London along with the Ministry of Tourism, Government …

Goa is all set to have a convention centre in Panaji, Goa. Nikhil Desai, MD, Goa Tourism Development Corporation, said, “For MiCE, there is a full-fledged convention centre in the offing at Panaji, with a capacity of 1400 people, with a mini expo centre as well. Also, there are talks about a large convention centre, with about 5000 seating capacity, to come up in Dona Paula near Panaji.” Goa has a lot of scope in terms of MiCE and is one of the most favoured destinations for events. Having convention centres in the state would certainly boost the number of conferences as well as arrivals to the state.