Category Archives: NTO (National Tourist Offices)

“There is great opportunity for promoting creative industries in various sectors from tourism, medical, healthcare, Bollywood and technology sectors besides financial services and innovation and technology in Cyprus,” said Nicos Anastasiades, President of the Republic of Cyprus while addressing an event hosted by the All India Association of Industries (AIAI) in Mumbai. Anastasiades said Cyprus will offer various incentive and conducive atmosphere to promote these sectors to the investors who are looking forward to establish bilateral trade relations with Cyprus. He met with the President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and signed various MoUs to promote business and cultural relations. Cyprus is also working on establishing air connectivity between India. “Cyprus is all set to extend assistance to India in improving the business environment between the two countries. We want to unlock the potential relationship by rebooting an age-old relationship in the wake of strengthening economic relations. Joint efforts of government together with trade and industry will facilitate bilateral trade and increase co-operation in fields of interest including tourism,” he adds. The Cypriot government is also keen to invite Bollywood producers to shoot their movies in the country.

South Africa received 6,300 Indian tourists to the destination during January 2017. The country aims to welcome more than 104,000 tourists from India in 2017. “We have been witnessing consistent growth in tourist inflow from India. Looking at the growth trend we are expecting to host 104,000 Indian tourists in 2017. We are focused in increasing our engagement with travel agents and customer outreach through outdoor media, television, digital and print,” said Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager, South African Tourism-India. She further says that the destination is looking forward to very high numbers during the summer holiday season running from now until mid-June. Slabber informed that the tourism board is planning to engage potential travellers in Tier-II markets through the agent-specific ‘Learn South Africa’ programme, which will train travel agents in 17 Indian cities during July 2017. She also added that with over 3,129 product offerings, and more being added, South Africa has something for everyone. “We are planning to train and customise specialised product offerings for travellers in these places with city-specific joint promotions with travel agents in all 17 cities. We have also published tourism related information and product offerings in six Indian vernacular languages,” she added. The destination is also focusing on the MICE segment and young solo travellers from India. (Source: PTI)S

Tourism Ireland in association with Etihad Airways hosted top 10 travel agents from across India to Ireland’s largest tourism trade fair, Meet the Buyer and Mietheal 2017, which was organized by Tourism Ireland. Huzan Fraser Motivala, India Representative, Tourism Ireland who accompanied the group for this key trade fair said “India is an important developing market for Tourism Ireland and one that we are committed to growing. We have been seeing a steady growth of 12-15 % in Indian visitor arrival numbers to the island of Ireland. “The Irish Visa Applications YTD 16 have also seen a 33% increase in visa applications compared to the same period last year. Factors in our favour include increased air access to Ireland, particularly by Etihad Airways and Emirates via the Middle East. Qatar Airways will be launching an additional flight starting June 2017, which we believe will further aid connectivity.  We hope that this FAM trip will help the travel trade to create customized itineraries to promote Ireland to their clients. Going forward, we will look to organize more such activities through 2017 and are confident of witnessing a growth in the number of Indian visitors to Ireland.” The workshop brought together over 310 overseas buyers and 455 Irish tourism businesses for three days of negotiating business deals. There were approximately 12,000 face to face meetings organised over the duration of this event – allowing international and Irish operators to meet and agree business for the 2017-2018 seasons. India is one key emerging market for Ireland and we see great potential from this region. In the last few years there has been greater interest and numbers being generated from the India as more …

Israel has witnessed a positive growth of 49 per cent in Indian arrivals from January to March 2017 vis-à-vis the same period in 2015. More than 8,300 Indians have already visited Israel in the first three months of 2017 as per statistics released by Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT). Speaking about this growth, Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism India office, said, “India is one of the world’s fastest-growing outbound tourism markets and an important emerging market for us. Keeping this in mind, we have increased our investments heavily in India. We are certain that our continued efforts in targeting the Indian holiday planners through our specially designed advertising campaign for India, ‘Begin your journey to Israel now’ will yield even better results by the year end.” The statistics also revealed almost 93 per cent growth in Indian arrivals to Israel merely in the month of March 2017 as compared to the same time in 2015. Madah adds, “We have seen a steady growth in tourist arrivals from India over the years and are confident that this trend will continue. Currently, El Al flies nonstop between India and Israel while Air India has also announced that they will begin operations on the New Delhi-Tel Aviv route in 2017. Increased air connectivity will surely act as an added impetus for more Indians to visit Israel for a holiday.”

Tourists and businessmen from India and 17 other countries can now travel to Russia’s Far East without a visa, informed Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister of Russia. In order to boost tourism and investment in the region, the nationals of these 18 countries will have simplified entry procedures into Russia through the free port of Vladivostok. According to Pavel Volkov, Deputy Minister, Development of the Far East, tourists and entrepreneurs will only be required to fill a form on the website of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Applications will be approved within four days. Electronic single entry visas will be issued directly at the Russian border and will be valid for 30 days. The 17 countries apart from India include Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Iran, Qatar, China, North Korea, Kuwait, Morocco, Mexico, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tunisia, Turkey, and Japan. “I have recently approved the list of countries, whose nationals can take advantage of the preferential regime. We are proactively forming the modern infrastructure and creating special regimes in the far East; the law on visits to the Vladivostok free port was approved in March. This is not because these states are situated at a closer or longer distance – we are appropriately introducing bilateral agreements on visa-free travel for those ready to use such an approach for us,” said Medvedev. Volkov further said, “We’d like to see an increase in tourism to the region by at least 30 percent. Given the fact that every wealthy tourist spends at least $1,000 in the territory, we assume this will significantly increase the opportunities for the development of the region, trade turnover, and currency flows.” Source: Live Mint  

Israel is going to offer five-year multiple entry visa for Indian businessmen. The move is to improve the bilateral trade between the two countries, especially with the scheduled visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel, tentatively in July this year. Visa has been a major point of discussion between the two countries for many years. The easing of business visa might be followed by easing of visa process for Indian tour groups as well. According to Amir Halevi, Director General of Israel Tourism, the country is planning to ease visa norms for Indians thinking of visiting Israel. An embassy statement quoting Ambassador Daniel Carmon said the initiative was part of the growing partnership between India and Israel.

Garuda Indonesia recently hosted an Open House for the travel trade in Mumbai in association with Visit Indonesia Tourism Office. The airline has appointed Bird Travels as its GSA that has eight offices across India. The purpose of the event was to create awareness about the airline’s new office in Mumbai and informing the trade about the various opportunities available to promote Indonesia as a destination. Garuda Indonesia recently inaugurated its office in Mumbai. Product presentation was given to the travel fraternity to update them more on Garuda Indonesia Services and to promote Indonesian destinations beyond Bali. To enable passengers to take advantage of the summer holiday season, Garuda Indonesia is running a special return promotional fare valid for travel until April 26, 2017. Mumbai to Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali) all-inclusive Economy class return fares starts from Rs. 22,000 and Business class from Rs. 58,000. (T&C apply) The fares are available for purchase from the Garuda Indonesia, Mumbai sales office and the appointed travel agents. Garuda Indonesia’s Jakarta-bound service operates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and is operated by Garuda’s state-of-the-art 162-seater, Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

Tourist arrival figures from India into South West Germany has shown an increase of 29.9 per cent increase for the period January-February 2017 versus the same period last year. Revealing this is Hector Dsouza, Director-India, South West German Tourism, says, “As compared to 2,784 Indian visitors for the period of January-February 2016, the state of Baden Wuerttemberg received 3,645 visitors from India in January-February 2017, representing a 29.9 per cent increase for the year 2017. This percentage increase is the highest as compared to tourists from other countries visiting South West Germany. India is now the fastest growing country in percentage terms, symbolising the tremendous potential India, as an outbound market holds for South West Germany.” Indian visitors continue to hold the record of the highest number of overnights per visit which is 5.2 days, as compared to the average of 2.3 days per visit in Europe. India now ranks 15th in terms of total overnight visits. The most favored destination for Indian visitors is the Stuttgart region, Black Forest and Heidelberg.

The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), in collaboration with Visa International (Thailand) Company Limited, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Thai Airways, Thai Smile Airways Company Limited, and Department of International Trade Promotion, Ministry of Commerce, has launched the Spice Up Thailand 2017 campaign for the fourth consecutive year. The campaign offers special privileges for MICE travelers, such as 10 per cent hotel discounts, 50 per cent discounts for car rentals and airport transfers, Bt500 cash coupons for shopping, 25 per cent restaurant discounts, and 50 per cent off golf course green fees. In addition, other hotel, shopping, dining, wellness, activity and transportation promotions have been made available.  In 2017, the Spice Up Thailand Campaign is working in alliance with registered organizations with more than 60 exhibitions in total. Nopparat Maythaveekulchai, President,  TCEB, said,  “Promoting MICE-related business through adopting an online marketing strategy has been a significant tool applied by TCEB, aimed to boost the domestic and international market of MICE travelers. Consistent with the government’s Digital Economy policy, this will drive the growth of Thailand’s MICE industry, while also supporting the overall economic growth of the country.” TCEB has developed the Spice Up Thailand campaign together with five partners in order to promote and create awareness of the MICE industry overseas, as well as delivering a first-class experience to MICE travelers; in turn,  help to increase spending and encourage MICE travelers to extend their stay in Thailand. The campaign has been carried out for the previous three years and is continuously developing in terms of adding new privileges for domestic MICE travelers, and targeting the MICE industry in Asia, specifically CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) countries. In the previous year, …

Haitham Mattar, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTD), said there has been a 35 per cent growth in Indian arrivals in Ras Al Khaimah in the first quarter of this year. “Indian travellers have grown a lot more for the destination. We have seen close to 25 per cent growth Year-on-Year in 2016 and the first quarter of this year has been even more promising with 35 per cent growth from the Indian market.” Ras Al Khaimah organised its roadshow at The Imperial, New Delhi, which saw the representatives from the travel trade in attendance.