Tag Archives: Arzan Khambatta

Observing the immense growth and potential in India’s outbound traffic, The Czech Republic has decided to open its tourism office India. The Czech Tourism India office will be located in Mumbai and will be represented through VFS Global. Present at the opening was Monika Palatkova, Managing Director, Czech Tourism Board, who said, “We have been working with VFS for visa processing since the last two years but it is only now that we decided to open an office in India. In the last five years, the volume of Indian arrivals to Czech Republic has almost tripled and we want to increase this further. From 66,000 Indian tourists that we received in 2016, we have a target to cross 1,00,000 Indian tourists by 2019.” The Czech Tourism India office will be led by Arzan Khambatta, Head, Czech Tourist Authority – Czech Tourism India. The tourism board is currently in the midst of a three-city roadshow – New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. The delegation consists of 10 sellers from the country, including Prague Airport, who will meet the Indian trade in these cities.

Czech Tourism has appointed VFS Global as its India representative. Ing. Tereza Matejkova, Head-Trade Fairs, Czech Tourism, said, “We are very happy to announce that we appointed VFS Global as our India representation for a year. We are looking for Indian travel agents and tour operator cooperation through our India representation. We will also be organizing familiarization and press trips to introduce our destination to the India market. We will also conduct roadshows and other marketing activities to boost the numbers to Czechia.” 66,000 Indian tourists visited Czech Republic last year which was a 20 per cent increase, added Matejkova. Arzan Khambatta, Head-India, Czech Tourism and Head-Tourism Representation, VFS Global, said, “We are happy to represent Czech republic in India and we hope to work in close collaboration with Czech tourism Board partners as well as Indian partners to grow the number of Indian tourists to Czechia.” He further explained that the tourism board will first start with cooperation with travel trade in India. “We feel there is a lot of scope to increase awareness about Czech Republic as a tourist destination and develop new products for the destination from the India market. We will also work to promote Czechia through social media and other consumer platforms which will be done at a later stage,” added Khambatta.