The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India will work on targeting the Indian diaspora settled abroad and encourage them to travel to India and explore the domestic destinations of the country under ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ scheme. Sharing details, Meenakshi Sharma, Director General, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India said, “Our emphasis has been to increase the tourist inflow to India. There is a huge Indian diaspora, which is travelling to various parts of the globe, and they should consider India as a destination as well. They should look towards enjoying the culture and experience of the country, where they have their roots. Getting the diaspora to travel to India is as good as getting the foreign tourists in the country. The industry should also start looking at this segment in a holistic manner and start offering packages, information and the facilities.”

Vishal Kumar Dev, Commissioner – cum – Secretary, Tourism, Sports and Youth Services, Government of Odisha, has said that the state will be coming up with a new tourism policy in 2020. Congratulating Hotel & Restaurant Association of Odisha for conducting the 4th Odisha Tourism Conclave, he shared, “An important agenda for the department of tourism is the drastic simplification of the process of allotment of land for new construction of hotels. There is a lack of enough star hotels in Odisha, especially in Bhubaneswar, which is a necessity for tourism.” They will be starting the Konark Sun City Festival to attract more tourists to the destination soon. Impetus remains on developing infrastructure, the department has also identified nine circuits touching 13 destinations, where developing infrastructure is the priority. While they have held six roadshows to promote Odisha, six more roadshows will take place this year. Next year, they hope to have international roadshows to promote tourism in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia

Business transactions worth Rs 3,000 crore are expected to take place during the second edition of the Tamil Nadu Travel Mart, scheduled from September 19-22 in Chennai. Sharing the details, Ligi George, Convenor, CII Tamil Nadu Tourism panel said the value of trade transacted in the last edition, which took place in 2007 was Rs 1,800 crore. “The total value of business in this edition is expected to b be Rs 3,000 crore, which would be through business to business meetings at the travel mart,” he added. More than 300 exhibitors and around 1,000 international and domestic buyers are expected to attend the three-day travel mart. Along with TTM, the Medical Value Travel Mart is also being organised by CII in association with the Tamil Nadu Travel Mart Society. (Source: Times of India)

In a bid to boost tourism, Madhya Pradesh Forest Department has proposed to develop 12 new wildlife sanctuaries in the state. The state government is reportedly looking for new ways to generate revenue and hence there is a focus on tourism sector. The Forest Department is working with the tourism corporation to provide more tourism activities in forest areas. In addition, district forest officers have been given the mandate to identify areas in their districts where parks and wildlife sanctuaries can be developed. Currently, Forest Department has directed to allocate 200 ha land for each sanctuary. At present, the state has 25 sanctuaries and 10 national parks, which generates around INR 27 crore every year to the government. With the new developments, the Govt. aims to increase the revenue by INR 200 crores from tourism activities. Also, in order to boost revenue from tourism, new wildlife sanctuaries and wildlife environmental zones have been proposed. As per the proposal, wildlife sanctuaries are being planned in districts like Balaghat, Sheopur, Mandla, Chhindwara, Shahdol, Dindori, Sagar, Khandwa, Jabalpur, Indore, Seoni and Hoshangabad. There are also plans to develop Ratapani and Mandhata (Shivpuri) as national parks. Source: Times of India

The 42nd edition of the PATA Travel Mart (PTM) opened in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan at the Korme Exhibition Center. With over 1000 delegates from 60 destinations are expected to participate in the two-day event. This is PATA’s first-ever event in Central Asia. This year, PATA is welcoming 19 hosted buyers and 21 seller organisations from India , who will be taking up 310 sqm of floor space at the event (out of 2,100 sqm of total exhibition space). “In addition, to the two full days of pre-matched business appointments between global sellers and qualified international buyers, we have also organized two PTM Forums with a dynamic line-up of speakers that will explore the power of technology and the evolution of content marketing,” said Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA. PTM stands out this year with a human capacity building training programme, which PATA is organising to provide further value to its host.

The Himachal Pradesh government has approved the draft of the new tourism policy in the state aimed at holistic development of tourism. The state cabinet has approved ‘Capital Investment Subsidy’ for tourism projects in underdeveloped areas of the state and grant for access of roads and water supply to tourism units. There will be five per cent capital subsidy for the new projects under this category maximum up to Rs 3 crores. To provide accessibility to new tourism projects, which lacked road connectivity and drinking water supply, the government proposed a 15 per cent subsidy. Srikant Baldi, Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh government said after the meeting, “There is also going to be subsidy component for the adventure tourism project of all kinds, and those setting-up tents will be encouraged with additional 10 per cent incentives on investments.” The policy will have special focus on ecotourism, agro organic tourism, snow tourism, lake tourism, adventure tourism, pilgrimage tourism, cultural and heritage tourism, health and wellness tourism, film tourism and  MiCE tourism. The main objectives of this policy is to promote tourism diversification through theme based development, to safeguard state’s tourism destinations through sustainable interventions, to ensure that sustainable tourism primarily benefits host communities, to build capacity and develop quality human resource for the tourism industry, to provide safe, secure and unique ‘tourism for all’ and to create enabling environment for investments for sustainable tourism.

Leveraging on the increase in visits from India, VisitBritain has recently launched a new B2B platform called Tourism Exchange Great Britain (TXGB). Sharing this is Tricia Warwick, APMEA Director, VisitBritain, who adds, “This new platform will help sell England’s tourism products and experiences to the travel trade in India. The platform enables distributors to connect with UK suppliers directly and promote the various products on offer. According to the International Passenger Survey results for Q1 2019, we have seen a 25 per cent increase in visits from India as compared to Q1 2018 with a 13 per cent increase in spends. Visitors from India have evolved from taking multi-country trips to mono-country ones and spend more time on local experiences.”

The Hotel & Restaurant Association of Odisha (HRAO) is organising the 4th edition of Odisha Tourism Conclave on 18 September under the theme ‘Tourism to be the driving force of state economy’. Governor of Odisha, Ganeshi Lal, will inaugurate the Conclave with other dignitaries. The conclave would be an immense congregation to give a 360 degree boost to the growth of tourism sector in Odisha, attract investments in the tourism sector, the holistic approach to rediscover the potential issues relating to Tourism & Hospitality sector and to prepare a roadmap with specific recommendations from the stakeholders.  Although Odisha has vast tourism potential, it is yet to come at par with its neighbouring and other states like Kerala, Goa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi etc.

Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and Air India have joined hands to announce the launch of a new nonstop flight connection from Delhi to Seoul. This first joint promotion initiative intends to promote more travellers visiting from India to South Korea with Air India as their preferred airline. It will be the shortest duration flight flying from Delhi-Seoul with six hours of flying time and maximum baggage allowance of two pieces, which is 46 kgs for economy passengers. With fares starting from INR 41,618, Air India is all set to target the Indian market with mostly the same fare offered from all the departure cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai. Not just this, to comfort the South Korean passengers on board, the Dreamliner aircraft on this air route will serve Korean food along with the Indian vegetarian and non-vegetarian meal options. In the year 2018 approximately 119,791 Indian tourist visited South Korea and 150,457 South Korean tourist visited India.

Having made huge inroads in the couple and honeymooner segments, Tourism Fiji has started tapping families and high value MICE travellers from India in a big way. Kathy Koyamaibole, Regional Manager Asia, Tourism Fiji, met with various key members of the travel trade. She said that Tourism Fiji is now also tapping new traveller groups such as families and high-value MICE travellers. “Our key target audience from India have been honeymooners and couples and we continue to see major growth in these segments. However, we are now looking at actively promoting Fiji to families and high-end consumers groups. We have also seen interest from the MICE segment for hosting conferences in Fiji, which is a good lead for us to foray into the high-value MICE segment from India. Tourism Fiji has invested additional resources in the market to promote MICE and early this year we hosted our premier MICE Agents Famil, inviting eight top MICE agents for it,” Koyamaibole added. Speaking about some of the activities the tourism board is doing, she added, “This year too we shall have a host of activities to educate and keep the travel trade abreast on the latest happenings in Fiji. We just concluded our Fijian Tourism Expo 2019 in May, where we hosted six Indian agents to experience the destination and meet some of the Fiji stakeholders. We will also conduct trainings for the trade in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. As an extension to an already impressive reception in 2018, this year too we would also be conducting a three-series webinar starting October.” The tourism board will also host key travel agents from pan India on familiarisation trips this year.