Category Archives: Exhibitions

The Global Panorama Showcase will go completely digital in 2020, with the first event of the year starting in Nagpur from January 27-28, 2020. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “We had set a goal for ourselves to go completely green in 2020. This year, we will have only 70 table spaces, with a fixed format wherein the backdrop will be eco-friendly. Instead of using flex, we are giving 15-inch screens to everyone, wherein it will be a 4000 ultra HD TV where exhibitors can showcase anything through their smart tabs, phones, devices or laptop, whether it is wired or non-wired. Even the sticker or paint used in the exhibition area will be eco-friendly, reusable, or recyclable. We will go almost 90 per cent eco-friendly, as we are already paperless. In future, we will have water dispensers put for the exhibitors and provide them with copper bottles to be refilled to avoid any plastic waste. This will be followed in all the cities. Every city will have a maximum of 70 exhibitors in 2020 and we have to go green completely. There will be a total of 8 GPS events and 4 Eco Connect events. Additionally, there will be around 4-6 EDWINs like every year.”

The India International Travel & Tourism Mart (IITT), Mumbai, has been rescheduled to August 2020. The event was previously scheduled to be held from January 15-17, at Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. The new dates and venue for the event have not been announced. The annual event offers a networking and marketing platform for the travel and tourism industry.

MITT has introduced the new Travel Technology sector for its 2020 edition. At its last edition, 4,000 visitors said they were interested in travel technologies such as online booking systems for hotels, transport, and transfers, payment systems, insurance companies and travel agencies. Over 6,000 visitors to MITT 2019 were travel agents. MITT’s event programme includes the popular annual MITT Digital conference, where industry experts discuss the most pressing issues facing travel, current trends, new business opportunities and the future of the tourism industry. This highly-anticipated event creates additional interest and helps attract a targeted audience of travel agents.

The second Association of Buddhist Tour Operators (ABTO) Convention and the International Buddhist Travel Mart (IBTM) kick-started in Bodhgaya, Bihar. Speaking at the inauguration, Vinod Zutshi, Former Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, said, “I congratulate ABTO for conducting this event and it’s great to see participants from 17 international countries. I think I have never seen a bigger congregation of Buddhist tourism lovers, especially when the programme is being convened by someone in the private sector. It great to see private players promoting tourism in such a manner. We all are blessed to be here at the event.” The two-day event is supported by the Ministry of Tourism. ABTO  provides a platform for religious tourism mainly Buddhism. It’s an international organisation working for the conservation, protection, preservation of monuments & promotion of tourism around the world.    

The first of the three-city Incredible India roadshow was held at Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore and witnessed participation from 25 Indian tour operators and DMCs along with representations from the state governments of Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. India Tourism Office in Singapore said that the roadshow provided a platform to the stakeholders of India’s tourism industry to interact with their Singaporean counterparts and position  India as a preferred destination for tourists of Singapore. After Singapore, the Incredible India roadshow will take place in Kuala Lumpur on December 10 and in Bangkok on December 12. A total of 1,75,852 tourists from Singapore visited India in 2017, a growth of 7.4 per cent on the year.

The next edition of FITUR,  organised by IFEMA will take place at Feria de Madrid, from January 22-26. The sustainability, technology and expertise, will remain principal axes of FITUR, to which the momentum of the shares will add targeted to grow in professionalism and inter-nationality and thus overcome the results of the last edition, which brought together more than 11,000 exhibiting companies from 160 countries, and 253,000 participants. For this, the FITUR organisation has paid special attention to strengthening its International Guest Programs as well as the agenda of  B2B meeting.

Government has implemented schemes for the promotion of local tourism in the country. Under the scheme, the Ministry undertakes promotions through advertising in print and electronic media, participation in fairs and exhibitions, organising seminars, workshops for stakeholders and service providers, as well as printing of brochures, collaterals etc. The various tourism products are also promoted on the Social Media accounts and website of the Ministry. Government is raising awareness regarding local tourism and to promote local religious and non-religious spots to the tourists coming from both outside and within the State. The Ministry of Tourism, under its Domestic Promotion and Publicity including Hospitality (DPPH) scheme for promotion of Domestic Tourism implements various measures for the promotion of tourism in the country. The main objective of DPPH Scheme is to create a general awareness among the domestic population about the potential tourist destinations in the country, which will help to increase the local / domestic tourism market. The Ministry through its 20 domestic India Tourism Offices located across the country, which also act as information centers, undertakes the promotional activities to promote India in a holistic manner which includes promotion of domestic/local tourism by raising awareness about local tourism products which include local religious and non-religious spots for the tourists coming from both outside and within the State.

Travel M!CE Show has been scheduled for December 14 & 15 at the Trident Chennai. The show will be conducting one-on-one meetings with 60+ pre-approved buyers. The show will conduct 1800 meetings over two days. The show will entail pan-India corporate meetings on day 1 and interactions and meetings with MiCE specialists on Day 2.

As a part of MITT 2020, ‘MITT Digital’ will be held on 17 March which will talk about startup technologies for travel agents and tour operators, current technology trends of incoming tourism to Russia etc. MITT Digital programme will also include sessions by leading international and Russian experts about online travel sector, current trends, new opportunities for business, and future or tourism business.

The 2nd edition of the PATA India Tourism PowerHouse, presented by the Inder Sharma Foundation will be held on December 6 at The PARK, New Delhi. Participants will get the opportunity to network, learn and interact with knowledge leaders and industry stalwarts and participate in engaging discussions on aviation capacity to India, impact of tourism, digital and destination marketing, The China opportunity and more.