OTM 2016 ended on an upbeat note from global sellers of destinations in the India market
OTM 2016, one of India’s biggest outbound travel mart, was recently held from February 18-20, 2016 at Bombay Exhibition Centre, Mumbai. Several global destinations participated at this year’s OTM with the keenness to carve a piece of India’s projected 50 million outbound pie. This list included Indonesia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Thailand, New Zealand, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Bangladesh, Philippines, Maldives, Oman, Bhutan, Seychelles, Israel, Rwanda, Romania, Fiji and Greece. Complementing their international counterparts were several Indian destinations such as Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha among others.
OTM 2016 offered a great opportunity for international exhibitors to showcase their travel and tourism potential. For instance, Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen exhibited their tourism offerings to the audience. Peter Hoslin, regional director, Europe and New Markets, Hong Kong Tourism Board said, “Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen are becoming popular among Indian travellers. Participating for the first time in OTM, the three-NTO pavilion provided us a business platform to introduce the collective strengths and the variety of experiences to our valued travel trade partners and Indian travellers.”
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also eyeing big on India’s outbound tourism potential. Highly placed representatives of the UAE’s travel and tourism industry under the umbrella of National Council of Tourism and Antiquities (NCTA) discussed its India-specific tourism promotion plans during OTM 2016. H E Sultan Mohamed Bin Khadin, acting consul, UAE Embassy in India, who was present on the occasion said, “The UAE has trade and cultural ties with India since ages. We want to strengthen these ties further and foresee a substantial growth in the number of tourist footfalls in the near future.”
The ministry of tourism, Republic of Indonesia is confident about an increase in tourist arrivals from India to Indonesia this year, said Rita Sophia, deputy director from the ministry who led a delegation of 20 private sector companies to OTM 2016. While Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) hopes to achieve 1.10 million Indian visitor arrivals to the Kingdom by the end of 2016 and an increase of tourism spending from this source market by eight per cent. The special attendance of H E Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, minister for tourism and sports as OTM’s chief guest at the inaugural ceremony underscored a firm commitment for the Kingdom’s continuous pursual of the many untapped opportunities arising from Thailand’s Tier II cities and new market segments.
While the global tourism industry is bullish on India’s growth story, off-beat and small countries like Rwanda, Romania, Fiji, Bhutan, Egypt, Maldives, etc are also attempting to ride on the bandwagon believing in India’s outbound tourism potential. For instance, Rwanda, which received 14,000 tourists from India in 2015, is now expecting about 35 per cent increase in its Indian tourist arrivals in the coming year. Joseph Kabakeza, first counsellor and deputy head of mission, High Commission of The Republic of Rwanda said, “India is the second target tourist destination after China and recognising the potential, the Rwanda Tourism Department has been promoting its offerings in India in a big way.”
Another example is Bhutan, which received 80,000 tourists in 2015; the country is now expecting the footfalls to rise anywhere between 1,30,000 to 1,50,000. Romania is also expecting about 10 per cent rise in tourist footfalls from India in 2016. Israel is also coming in a big way on international tourism circuits and for it, India is a promising destination.
In this three-day B2B trade show, more than a 1000 sellers from 50 participating destinations met over 6,000 buyers on the exhibition floor. Side by side the trade exhibition, there was a host of events which discussed emerging trends in the travel business such as TechForum@OTM, #StartupKnockDown, Shoot at Site@OTM, Buyer-Seller Speed Networking, India’s Top 100 Travel Producers Award, and Responsible Tourism@OTM.
Speaking about the significance of OTM 2016, Sanjiv Agarwal, chairman and CEO, Fairfest Media, organisers of OTM opined, “Technology, digital marketing, and social media are increasingly enabling travel organisations from tourist boards to hotels, tour operators and tourist attractions to market to targeted consumers domestically and globally. In partnership with travel-tech media platform, TravHQ, we have successfully created India’s first and only specialised tourism-based business-technology platform, TechForum@OTM, aimed at connecting technology solution providers with our colleagues in the travel industry.”
The event also saw panel discussions on topics such as ‘How to leverage content and online influencer relationships for the travel industry’. In the presence of the head of travel business at Google India, venture capitalists and a corporate strategist from Cox & Kings, a workshop on #StartupKnockDown was conducted to provide promising travel start-ups a pitch deck to increase awareness and raise funds. ‘Unleashing the power of Film Tourism’ was the theme of Shoot at Site@OTM session where it was reported that the film industry is a major money-spinner for destinations on locations. Global destinations such as Singapore, Switzerland and Spain have reaped these benefits from recent Indian film productions shot overseas. The film industry urged their travel colleagues to convert red tapes to red carpets for win-win policies in simplifying the process, incentivising productions and co-promotions. Following the launch of India’s Top 100 Travel Producers Award last year, OTM 2016 presented similar laurels this year. The award is based on a three-month process of desk researches, industry nominations, voting and polling for the final cut of India’s Top 100 Travel Producers with the highest buying power for outbound and domestic travel products.
Highlighting the role of tourism in ensuring sustainability, ‘ResponsibleTourism@OTM’ theme was introduced with an awareness stand at the exhibition floor and audience-interactive presentation by partnering with organisation, Open Eyes Project & Responsible Tourism in India, led by CEO and founder, Anna Alma Torres.