Tag Archives: India Representative

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 …

Munich Tourist Office, India, has launched a specialist-training program called Munich Travel Guru for the travel trade. The programme builds on the theme ‘Simply Munich’ and engages the travel trade through 10 online informative modules. The participants will have to score a minimum of 90 per cent in each module to proceed to the next level. Once the participant clears all modules and becomes a Munich Travel Guru, certificate will be issued online and the early birds will be rewarded. SanJeet, India Representative, Munich Tourist Office, said, “We have been actively working with our travel partners with an objective to create the buzz and help build business for Munich City. The program has also been designed specially to enhance knowledge of the frontline staff through extensive education and sell packages to Munich more effectively.” As per the latest statistics, Munich has recorded a year-on-year growth of 21 per cent during January–June 2016 in Indian visitor arrivals and 14 per cent growth in Indian overnights.

Oman received 299,022 Indian arrivals last year recording 17 per cent growth in 2015 over 2014. Oman’s National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) released the figures from India which highlight an increase in inbound numbers. The statistics also reflect a growth of 60 per cent in Indian arrivals to Oman in the last five years. Lubaina Sheerazi, India Representative, Ministry of Tourism, Oman, said, “The increase is very encouraging and reflects all the hard work we have put in promoting and marketing the destination in India. Since 2014, we started promoting Oman as an ideal wedding destination for Indians as Muscat is close to India. Our efforts were rewarded as we witnessed several large-scale weddings take place in the last two years. Many Indians are now visiting Oman for destination weddings. MICE has also seen an increase and to attract more MICE activities this year, our efforts are aimed at increasing interactions with tour operators and corporates.”

RwandAir, the national carrier for Rwanda, will start direct flights from Rwanda into Mumbai effective September 2016. Clarence Fernandes, India representative, Rwanda Development Board, which also promotes tourism, reveales, “RwandAir will be coming in with four weekly flights from Mumbai to Dar-e-salaam and Dar-e-salaam to Kigali on A-330 with first, business and economy class. They will initially come in with 244 seats and as the demand increases the airline will scale up to 274 seats. This will be the shortest route, connecting Mumbai and Kigali. Dar-e-Salaam has a large Indian population so it was most practical to do a stop-over here.”