Category Archives: NTO (National Tourist Offices)

VisitBritain has announced its two-city sales mission in January 2020. The tourism authority will conduct its sales mission in India after a gap of three years. The sales mission is scheduled to take place in Mumbai followed by New Delhi on January 13, 2020 and January 15, 2020, respectively. Vishal Bhatia, Country Manager, India, VisitBritain, said, “For this we have the biggest ever contingent from the UK participating this time which speaks volumes about the demand they see from India and the kind of confidence we have in the market. We are looking at around 44 companies from British organisations across DMCs, DMOs, as well as UK Visas & Immigration coming in for this.” The primary focus for the participants will be leisure but there will be many suppliers who will also focus on MICE. Bhatia adds, “There will be a big contingent from north of England as well. Marketing Manchester has been working extremely closely with us over the years and we have 20-odd suppliers coming from the north who can handle big MICE groups as well – like the Lancashire Cricket Club which is where the India-Pakistan match took place in June. The trade will also be able to meet some football clubs who can host big MICE groups. We have a lot of suppliers coming in for the first time, almost 60-70 per cent are first-timers. This is possibly due to new air connections launched recently between India and the UK.” The last such sales mission was conducted in 2017 in Pune with 22 suppliers from the UK who met 90-odd hosted buyers from India.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) partnered with Zomato for Zomaland Season 2, a multicity food and entertainment carnival across ten cities in two formats – Zomaland in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai; and Zomaland Picnics in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad. This association is an integral part of STB’s efforts to engage with foodies in India through the showcasing of Singapore food and experiences through a designated “Singapore Experience Zone” at Zomaland. Over three days (13th to 15th December), attendees to Zomaland Delhi enjoyed food from the world’s first Michelin Star hawker, Liao Fan Hawker Chan’s famous Soya Sauce Chicken Rice at the “Singapore Experience Zone”. In addition to this, they will also got to savour signature dishes like Kaya toast, Char Kway Teow (Stir-fried Rice Noodles), Chicken Satay and Ice Milo by Nasi and Mee, a popular restaurant chain in India serving Singaporean dishes. Speaking about this association with Zomato, Lim Si Ting, Area Director, India & South Asia (Mumbai), Singapore Tourism Board said, “We are happy to partner with Zomato for the first time, and believe Zomaland brings us closer to the Indian audiences through a common love and passion for food. By highlighting authentic Singaporean cuisine and the varied dining options, we hope to entice more Foodies in India to visit Singapore for even more culinary delights. We are also excited to have Hawker Chan from Liao Fan Chicken Rice – the world’s first Michelin-star Hawker from Singapore, to share both his Soya Sauce Chicken Rice dish and stories about his passion as a chef with the Indian audience. We look forward to sharing more of such immersive experiences at Zomaland Delhi and the other …

In a recent update by the Indian Embassy in Beijing, Chinese nationals can apply for an e-Tourist visa (e-TV) of 5-year validity with multiple entries. The visa fee for 5-year multiple entry e-TV will be USD 80. Furthermore, it has been decided that the tourists can avail single-entry 30-day validity e-TV at a reduced visa fee of USD 25, while for a 30-day e-TV during the months of April to June, the visa fee will cost USD 10.

The Tourism Office of Spain (Turespaña) in Mumbai, India, has appointed a new director in Elisa Robles-Fraga. She has joined operations in this office with effect from September 1, 2019 and has commenced her position as the Tourism Counsellor and Director of Tourism Office of Spain in Mumbai. Throughout her professional experience Robles-Fraga has been mainly working at the Spanish General Administration both at national and international levels, including European Union related matters. In a previous position as Director General of the CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial – Center for Industrial Technological Development), the Spanish Innovation Agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Government of Spain, she has had the opportunity to bilaterally work with India for several of her projects during her tenure at CDTI. Her roles and responsibilities will remain the same as the previous directors of the said office.

The Turkish Tourism Board in India revealed that between January to June this year, Turkey has registered a 56% increase in the number of Indian tourist arrivals in comparison to the same period last year, hosting 130,000 Indian visitors. With such positive growth rate and indicative data coming from ministry, the Turkey tourism board is expecting to host around 250.000 Indian tourists by the end of 2019 The latest official statistics show that more than 24 million foreign tourists visited Turkey within the period of January to July, a strong 14.10 percent increase from the same period of last year. Turkey has emerged as a popular destination for Indian Travellers across categories. From leisure travel to FITs, Indian weddings to Mice summits, there has been a significant increase in all segments. This year Turkey witnessed a substantial surge in the number of extravagant Indian destination weddings across Turkey.  Similarly, MICE travel to Turkey increased at an incredibly fast pace. The tourism board further announced that by the end of 2019, Turkey is expected to host around 30 Indian weddings and 30.000 MICE visitors. Basis the current arrival numbers, and the activities planned in months to come, the tourism board is hoping to reach a record number of Indian tourist arrivals in Turkey by end of this year. The first half has witnessed a record engagement in terms of FITs, weddings & MICE and this trend will only go up. Turkey tourism board has been constantly engaging with Indian audience by highlighting important festivals, summits & international events that are being held in Turkey. A number of fams and engagements are being held regularly from India market to different parts of …

The Department of Tourism (DOT), Republic of Philippines, reported double-digit growth on Indian tourist arrivals to the country during the first half of this year (Jan-June). India is among the top eleven source markets to the archipelago country. Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo–Puyat owes the continued upsurge to the sustained support from industry stakeholders, government, host communities, investors and foreign travel trade counterparts.

Indian tourist arrivals in The Netherlands registers a growth of 15% in the first half of 2019. The number of Indians travelling to The Netherlands from January-June was 1,00,000 as compared to 85,000 during the same period last year. The total number of Indian arrivals last year to The Netherlands was 1,75,000. The growth from India has been significant in The Netherlands, especially in May and June, this year- 23,000.

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.”

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.

At an appreciation dinner organised in New Delhi, the Singapore Tourism Board thanked cruise lines and cruise travel intermediaries for promoting cruising from Singapore. GB Srithar, Regional Director – India, Middle East & South Asia (IMESA), Singapore Tourism Board, presented ‘Valued Tourism Partner’ awards to representatives from key cruise lines operating out of Singapore and travel trade partners selling cruise holidays. Representatives of cruise lines were, Nalini Gupta, Managing Director, Lotus Aero Enterprises (Costa Cruise India); Nishith Saxena, Founder & Director, Cruise Professionals Ltd. (Princess Cruises), Naresh Rawal, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Genting Cruise Lines and Ratna Chadda, CEO, Tirun Travel Marketing (Royal Caribbean International). Four travel agents nominated by Costa Cruises, Genting Cruises and RCI were also felicitated at the ceremony.