Rituparna Chatterjee – Mumbai
The national tourism offices of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia (the four states also referred to as Visegrad Four or V4) are looking at increasing the inflow of Indian MICE and leisure tourists to their destinations in 2014. For the same, a series of roadshows were held across various major Indian cities in the last quarter of 2013. Speaking on this, Jan Herget, director, foreign offices department, Czech Tourism Board stated, “We are looking at targeting the second time travellers to Europe like the high end and upper middle class segments who have been to popular destinations in Europe before and want to experience something new. All the four states together form an interesting combination where east meets west and south meets north which will be interesting for the people in India.”
The four destinations combined witnessed less than 15,000 Indian tourist arrivals in 2012 with an average night stay of 2.5 days resulting in 25,000 to 30,000 guests nights. “However, the exact numbers are difficult to ascertain because of the Schengen Visa. You can take the Schengen Visa to enter Germany but you don’t need to show it when you are travelling to other states,” he opined.
The four states are currently facing a few challenges that are hindering the growth in the number of Indian tourists. “What we are missing as a group is direct flight connection. However, we have a regional connection with Emirates and Cutter Aviation which are preferred choices among corporate travellers since they offer quality service at affordable rates. Another difficulty is that there is lack of awareness among Indians because of inadequate advertising campaigns, ” explained Emilia Kubik, project leader, ‘I like Poland’ campaign, Polish Tourist Organisation.
Currently, Czech Tourism Board is looking at promoting film tourism by targeting the Bollywood industry. Polish Tourist Organisation has started promoting the destination through print and online campaign from December 2013 to June 2014 to increase the inflow of Indian tourists.
