Category Archives: NTO (National Tourist Offices)

Seychelles continues to ride the wave of growth with increasing number of Indian tourists each year. 2017 marked India’s placement as the top seventh source market for the destination with over 13500 visitors from India. The numbers are only increasing with over 8000 passengers having travelled in the first half of 2018, even before the peak honeymoon season of October-December. The destination now sees a growth in family and celebrations segment as well with a steady rise of 13.3% in Indian tourist arrivals from January to July 2018 vis-a-vis the same time period in 2017. This increase can be attributed to the India tourist office’s committed focus on promotion of the destination, interest and efforts from the hotels and DMCs to capture the Indian market, increased customer awareness due to innovative digital presence along with direct flights from Mumbai five times a week. Commenting on this accomplishment, Sherin Francis, CEO, Seychelles Tourism Board said, “We have always adopted innovative strategies and marketing collaborations to present Seychelles as the ideal luxury holiday destination in India. The growth would not have been possible without the constant support of Air Seychelles, the DMCs and the hotels who walk with us hand in hand in going the extra mile to ensure year on year success.” Lubaina Sheerazi, COO, Blue Square Consultants which is the India office for the Seychelles Tourism Board accounted this increase to focused efforts into innovative marketing campaigns and precise targeting of the destination to the Indian audience.  

Vienna has witnessed a 4.3 per cent rise in Indian tourists this year with 66,828 bed nights in the first six months. India is one of the high growth tourist markets for Vienna along with China and Russia. Last year in the same period, 64,075 Indians winged their way to Vienna. Tourist arrivals rose to 30,445 in January-Jun 2018 recording a growth of 5% (compared to 29,022 the same period last year). June 2018 saw a growth of near 8 per cent with Indian travellers recording 23,499 bed nights. Tourist arrivals grew 11.7 per cent to 10,659 in the Jan-June 2018 period from 9543 in the year ago period. The rising number of Indian travellers to the city of castles and palaces has been aided by growing direct air connectivity. Air India had been operating a direct Delhi-Vienna flight three days a week. This year, the Maharaja added one more flight to the Austrian capital in its summer schedule enhancing seating capacity by 33 per cent.

South Africa Tourism has recently announced the appointment of Neliswa Nkani as Hub Head—Middle East, India and South East Asia at a networking dinner hosted in Mumbai for the travel trade. Hanneli Slabber now takes charge as the General Manager— Asia, Australasia and Middle East for South Africa Tourism. The event of Nkani’s appointment was attended by Sthembiso Dlamini, Chief Operating Officer (COO), South African Tourism along with ML Ramokgopa, Consul General—South African Consulate, Mumbai.

Cholada Siddhivarn has been appointed as Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand in Mumbai. She and her team in Mumbai will cover western and southern India as well as Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The announcement was made at a recently held Open to the New Shades networking dinner in Mumbai. Siddhivarn was previously the director of Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Americas Marketing Group at TAT head office. She has been working with Tourism Authority of Thailand over 20 years now. With such a vast experience, Siddhivarn will continue to enhance travel trade and media relations in order to promote newer destinations in Thailand and boosting arrivals from India to Thailand in the coming years. Talking on the occasion, Siddhivarn quoted, “I am very excited to take up this new opportunity and starting a fresh in the city of dreams – Mumbai. India is a very important country for Thailand in terms of tourism as well as trade. I look forward to encouraging women travellers, showcasing local experiences at the destination and boosting arrivals from India”. She considers India to be one of the important markets for Thailand and hopes to showcase different aspects of Thailand to the Indian traveller.

The latest official figures from VisitBritain record 562,000 visits from India to the UK in 2017, up 35 per cent on the previous year, with Indian travellers spending a record £454 million in the UK last year, an increase of 5 per cent on 2016. Tricia Warwick, Director – Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, VisitBritain, said “India is a very important market for VisitBritain and it is fantastic that more people than ever are travelling and enjoying experiences that you can only have in Britain, from the exciting and contemporary culture to innovations in food and drink, from exploring the stunning countryside to the vibrancy of its cool cities.” “Britain is offering great value for visitors from India and we are working hard with partners including tour operators and airlines to make it easier to book and explore more of the country, inspiring more visitors to travel right now,” she said. VisitBritain is also inspiring visitors from India to put the UK at the top of the list as their must-visit destination through its ‘Find Your GREAT Britain, I Travel For…’ digital campaign launched earlier this year.  

More than 120 travel fraternity members from across India will mark their presence at ‘Focus Philippines’ organised by Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines, at the LaLiT Golf & Spa Resort, Goa. Over 20 exhibitors from the Philippines are showcasing their products, which include various Department of Tourism regional offices, attractions, hotels, integrated resorts, destination management companies as well as national and global air carriers. Through Focus Philippines, travel operators will witness exclusive, one-on-one meetings and gain a better insight on the destination. This will enable them to further customise their product offerings, based on exhibitor inputs, thereby taking Indian arrivals to the Philippines to the next level. MA Teresita C Daza, Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines, said, “Focus Philippines is a good opportunity for different stakeholders in the tourism industry in the Philippines to interact with travel operators in India. It will be a good opportunity from both the sides to actually see what packages, can be presented and promoted highlighting different attractions in the Philippines.” Dakila F Gonzales, Head, Office of Product and Market Development – India, Department of Tourism Philippines, said, “The inspiration behind the creation of the event is the huge increase in tourist arrivals of Indian nationals to the Philippines. In 2017, we had reached almost 107,000 arrivals, with a growth of 22 per cent and this growth is being sustained. We have realised that there is a further potential to increase this growth. Therefore, we want to stay committed to our current partners, giving them more knowledge on new segments of Philippines tourism.”  

Egypt Tourism, led by Ismail Amer, Egyptian Tourism Counsellor, Egyptian Tourism Office in Mumbai, is conducting a four-city roadshow which includes the cities of Mumbai (July 23), Ahmedabad (July 24), Bengaluru (July 26) and Cochin (July 27). The Mumbai leg witnessed a huge response from the travel trade who attended to meet their counterparts from Egypt to explore the opportunities of cooperation and extend their knowledge about the uniqueness and variety Egypt offers to visitors. The Mumbai roadshow included two separate segments on the sidelines of the main show – an Experts Meet, which was the corporate MiCE workshop followed by an Experts Meet on film workshop which invited key individuals from the film and entertainment industry. Speaking at the event, Amer said, “In 2017, we received 1,03,000 visitors from India and this was a 30 per cent increase in numbers as compared to the previous year. In 2016, we received about 79,000 tourists from India. It’s a very good growth and I believe it is the largest growth we have achieved since 2014, when we had received only about 60,000 tourists from India.” He added that according to the latest figures, Indians are the second-highest spenders in terms of the international market, preceded only by Japanese tourists.

Singapore has received over six lakh visitors from India between January to May 2018, reporting a 17 per cent year-on-year increase from 2017. The year 2017 was a record year for STB as visitor arrivals from India had crossed the one million mark for the third time in a row, showcasing the highest growth rate at 16 per cent in comparison with all markets. India also continues to be the top source market for visitor arrivals in the cruise segment for Singapore. Last year, 127,000 cruise passengers from India sailed out of Singapore’s shores, showing a year-on-year increase of 25 per cent from 2016. While speaking about STB’s efforts to showcase Singapore as a destination of choice among Indian travellers, GB Srithar,  Regional Director – South Asia Middle East & Africa (SAMEA), STB, said, “STB has been steadfastly engaging travellers through partnerships and various marketing initiatives. Last year, India moved up a spot to become the third largest source market for Singapore in terms of Visitor Arrivals. We are looking forward to working closely with both Indian and Singaporean travel trade partners to continue the momentum and entice more Indian travellers.” This year, the STB has lined up a series of collaborative initiatives to welcome more Indian travellers to Singapore in 2018. They embarked on an 8-city roadshow from July 16-26 with close to 40 stakeholders to grow their partnership with in-market travel agents. This is part of STB’s ongoing efforts to take the ‘Passion Made Possible’ brand messaging forward and showcase Singapore’s diverse offerings to the target audience.    

In an effort to bring momentum to tourism growth and encourage more travellers to visit the country, the Royal Oman Police has recently announced a new short-term tourist visa at 5 Omani Riyal (OMR) to visit the Sultanate for a period of 10 days. Indians who hold a valid visa to any one of these countries – United States of America, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Japan and Schengen States can avail the Oman visa through an e-visa process by logging on to https://evisa.rop.gov.om/ and make the 5 OMR payment on checkout, while other Indian travellers can get a sponsored visa by paying 5 OMR plus processing fee through their tour operators. This is in addition to the existing e-visa for Oman which is available at 20 OMR with a validity of one month. The amendments include dividing tourist visas into three sections: 10 days, one month and one year. Lubaina Sheerazi, India Representative, Ministry of Tourism, Oman said, “Along with FIT, we have seen an increase in MiCE tourism with the recent launch of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre in Muscat that supports international and local organisations in hosting large events. Also, many new international hotel chains that have recently opened in Oman have increased the number of rooms and venues in the country. Oman being a short-haul destination from India, with excellent air connectivity from major Indian cities, world-class hotels and easy availability of Indian food, is also becoming a preferred wedding destination. The reduced visa fees, new e-visa system, along with the newly opened Muscat International Airport will definitely be a boon for Oman’s tourism.” With a total of 3 million and 300 thousand tourists visiting last …

The first direct air service between Vietnam’s most populous Ho Chi Minh City and New Delhi is likely to commence by the last quarter of this financial year. This was announced by Nguyen Le Thanh, Deputy Chief of Mission at Vietnam Embassy. Stating that out of 20 million Indians travelling overseas every year, only 90,000 visit Vietnam. “India has a very important place in our foreign policy and we have a comprehensive strategic partnership. The bonding will strengthen further with more people to people contact and this can been be boosted through tourism,” Thanh said. She said Vietnam has seen a rapid rise in tourist inflow from the other parts of the world with an average 25 to 30 per cent increase in numbers every year compared to the previous year. “From just 2.5 lakh overseas tourists in 1990, Vietnam has registered 13 million tourist arrivals in 2017,” she said. Thanh said that the country has a great heritage with a 4000-year-old history. With a very long coastline, the S-shaped country has 125 beaches including the popular Nha Trang, Da Nang and Phu Quoc island, she said. She said the country is peaceful and safe with friendly people and boasts of an exquisite cuisine. Source: PTI