voyager's world october issue

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Voyager’s World > October 2013

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Warm Regards

[email protected]

General ManagerKaustuv DasMobile [email protected]

Operations [email protected]

Marketing & Circulation

Chief DesignerShyam [email protected]

Graphic DesignerNanda Kumar [email protected]

Editorial

Editor Firoz [email protected]

Associate EditorPriyamvadha [email protected]

Web DeveloperRohith [email protected]

Managing EditorRohit Hangalrohit@voyagers world.in

Assistant EditorIrene Susan [email protected]

Published BySurinder [email protected] &Rohit [email protected]

Circulation ExecutiveShyam [email protected]

Editor’s

Note

The Indian sky is going to witness lot of churnings in the times to come, what with the proposed launching of two airlines. A

low-cost airline, to be set up by Air Asia, in tie-up with Telestra Tradeplace and Tata Sons, is sure to be a game-changer in the Indian skies; given the successful low-cost model the Malaysian carrier has shown the world.

The company believes in the true potential of India’s untapped domestic routes; the aim is to replicate the successful low-cost model it has been able to implement across South East Asia.

But analysts believe this is not going to be an easy affair, con-sidering the airport costs and spiraling fuel prices and taxes in India. But one shouldn’t discount Air Asia’s capabilities in overcoming all these hurdles; the airline’s chief executive Tony Fernandes has already announced his plans to operate the new airline from Chennai to smaller cities where airport costs are comparatively lower.

The recent announcement by Tata Sons, one of subcontinent’s leading industrial conglomerates, to launch a full-service carrier in collaboration with Singapore Airlines is another development which can stirred up the Indian travel industry. Will it amount to a conflict of interest for Tata to have a low-cost as well as full-service simultaneously? This question would have been rele-vant in the case of the so-called LCCs in India which have been accused of blurring the thin line between full-scale and low-cost carriers by charging, on certain routes, almost the same fare as their full scale counterparts. But in the case of Air Asia, things will be different as its aim is not to be seen as a LCC for name-sake.

This is a very premium issue as this goes to the WTM London being held in November as we are the media partner of the event. On the cover we have the growing trend of Indian tourists to seek out newer destinations out there and the NTOs’ eager-ness to tap the segment. Also on the menu is a story on the importance of promoting Incredible India.

# 245, Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560 071, IndiaPh: +91 - 80 - 4083 4103, Fax: + 91 - 80 - 4083 4101

[email protected], www.spheretravelmedia.com

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2012. No part of this magazine may be reproducted without the prior written permission from Voyagers’s World

Churning and more Churning

06Industry Buzz

10Cover Story

30Incredible India

41Travel Events

46Festivals of the World

48India Outbound

India outbound travel trends

Are we promoting Incredible India enough and tapping its potential?

Travelista- a travel film and photography festivalKerala Travel Mart

Colouful festivals across the globe, from Kimchi in Korea and food fiesta in Spain to Mysore Dasara in India...


6>>Industry Buzz

Thomas Cook (India) Ltd launched its ‘Forex on Mobile’ service, offering a

range of foreign exchange products and services at fingertips, making it the first non-banking company in India to offer the convenience and security of transacting foreign exchange via a smart phone.

Extensive consumer analysis and behavio-ral patterns have highlighted that Indians

are increasingly using mobiles to multitask on the move, transforming the phone into a critical work-cum-leisure device. It is for today’s on-the-move customer, that Thomas Cook India’s ‘Forex on Mobile’ service was launched – em-powering him with the convenience of transacting anytime, anywhere, via his phone. The in-built security features en-sures that the all critical safety element is taken care of.

Thomas Cook launches Forex on Mobile

Vivanta by Taj – Hotels & Resorts has launched Vivanta by Taj – Surajkund. (Earlier being operated and managed as The Claridges, Surajkund).

Re-christened as Vivanta by Taj - Surajkund, the hotel is all set to embark on a new era of cool luxury nestled in the lap of a forested and tranquil neighborhood.

Raymond N Bickson, M.D. & C.E.O., Indian Hotels Company Limited said: “We welcome the newest addition to our portfolio. This hotel will be the third Vivantain the region after the recent launch of Vivanta by Taj – Gurgaon, NCR and our contemporary classic address Vivanta Ambassador. This is in line with a strategic plan to expand our pres-ence in the National Capital Region and underlines the company’s objective of achiev-ing growth through domestic dominance.”

Vivanta by Taj Surajkund launched

Delhi Tourism launched a Hindi version of the official web portal of Delhi Tourism and Transportation De-

velopment Corporation (DTTDC), to attract more domestic tourists from across the country. The website is developed in Unicode encoding so it can be seamlessly viewed in all the computers.

Detailed information on tourist places, seasonal tours, city sightseeing, transport, e–booking, bed & breakfast accommodation, eateries, etc are available in the Hindi version of the website.

Now view Delhi Tourism website in Hindi

Hurtigruten appoints Cruise Club as a new partner in India

Hurtigruten has appointed Cruise Club for the purpose of marketing and sales of its cruise experiences in India.

Hurtigruten is one of the leading cruise companies in the world, and operates along the coast of Norway, apart from offering Arctic and Antarctica expedition cruises. Hurtigruten also offers spring and fall voyages through Western Europe, the Baltic, British Isles and even North Africa, offering cul-tural immersion at every stop.

JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts launched its first hotel in Bangalore, with 297 rooms and suites, including an ultra-

luxurious Presidential Suite. “JW Marriott Bengaluru reflects the sophistication and elegance travellers have come to expect from the JW Marriott brand. Our offerings suit the re-fined tastes of our international and domestic guests,” said Rajeev Menon, Area Vice President – South Asia for Marriott International.

The hotel’s General Manager Parul Thakur said: “The JW Marriott Bengaluru offers one of the city’s largest MICE fa-cilities along with world-class dining, entertainment options and luxurious guestrooms.”

JW Marriott opens in Bangalore


8>>Industry Buzz

Dubai Film and TV Commission (DFTC),

in collaboration with Atlantis, The Palm, is extending its full sup-port for the produc-tion of the upcoming Bollywood film Happy New Year, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and Abhishek Bachchan and directed by Farah Khan.

DFTC partnered with Dubai Government entities to simplify the filmmaking process for the production team, while Atlantis, The Palm is hosting a majority of the shoot in and around the resort’s grounds. Emirates Airline flew the stars and crew to Dubai for the production while the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) has provided extensive logistical support to facilitate the overall shoot.

Dubai boosts tourism through films

Lonely Planet launches shopping cart

Lonely Planet now offers a facility through its website (www.lonelyplanet.in) for purchasing

its travel guides on a single platform, through its digital agency, Iffort. In the first phase, only those titles produced by Lonely Planet India will be available for online purchase; other titles pro-duced internationally and ebook versions will be added shortly. The prices starts at Rs.140.

Jet offers deals for Sri Lanka

Jet Airways introduced a host of attractive and economical holidays under its JetEscapes brand for travellers from Sri Lanka to destinations in India.

They include return air travel in economy, airport transfers, three-star hotel accommodation with breakfast and sightseeing. They can also be customised to include air travel on board Jet Airways’ Premiere (Business class) including accommodation at four or five star hotels. The choice of budget hotels makes travel with JetEscapes a true value proposition.

The holidays are priced, with a 2N/3D stay in Chennai and Bangalore start-ing at LKR.32,125 and LKR.29,220 respectively. Guests may also choose from a 2N/3D package to Velankanni and Delhi starting at LKR.41,450 and

LKR.50,060 respectively; a 3N/4D extended holidays to Goa and Mumbai at LKR.53,050 and LKR.33,490 respectively; 5N/6D to Exotic Kerala, Southern Delight, Fascinating Ladakh and Mountain Magic at LKR.80,295, LKR.82,435, LKR.126,420 and LKR.103,120 respectively or a 4N/5D to the Golden Triangle at LKR.82,400 and a 6N/7D package to Himachal Pradesh starting at LKR. 113,670.

A Skyscanner survey reveals that 73% of Indians agreed that airlines ought to ban children under

12 from certain sections of planes. The survey, which comes soon after Air Asia X and Scoot airlines imple-menting child-free zones on their aircrafts, studied the views of 1000 Indian travellers to find out if they thought it was fair to make certain rows child-free.In fact, more men were in favour of the move with close to 400 male travellers welcoming such zones on-board flights as compared with 330 women.

The child-free cabin zones come with ‘special ambi-ent lighting’ to provide a ‘more relaxing atmosphere’ and are priced more than regular seats. When asked if they would pay extra to sit in a child-free zone aboard an aircraft, 43% of travellers disagreed with the concept of an ‘adult only’ section and thus would not pay more.

Belgian VAC

opens in Pune

The Kingdom of Belgium and VFS

Global extended their visa application services for Belgium to Pune, with the opening of a Belgian Visa Application Centre.

This new initiative is in continuation to the deci-sion of extending such services to six new loca-tions across India. This strategic move is aimed at offering new services, facilities to visa applicants and boost tourism, trade investments and bilateral ties with India.

SpiceJet flies from

Bangalore to Bangkok

SpiceJet has launched direct flights between Bangalore and Bangkok.

Bookings for this route are now open. Commercial flights on Bangalore-Bangkok route will start from 27th October 2013. SpiceJet flight SG 91 will depart Banga-lore Airport at 03.35am every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and the return flight, SG 92, will arrive Bangalore at 10.35pm.

The airline is offering an introductory fare of just Rs. 7999/- one way (inclusive of all taxes) on the Bangalore - Bangkok route.

The airline will be deploying its New Generation Boeing 737-800 (189 seater aircraft) on this route. Bangkok will be SpiceJet’s 10th international destination.

73% Indians favour 'child-free zones' on planes

www.voyagersworld.in

8>> 9>> Industry Buzz

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MarcAsia has been appointed as exclusive representation

company from two DMCs, namely Gulf Ventures Oman and Crown Tours from Maldives as well as from Knightly Hotel Apartments in London.

“Marc Asia has always strived to give to travel professionals in Mum-

bai and to a larger extent in India a portfolio of best DMCs and hotels in key destinations for the Indian outbound market. We now have a selection of carefully handpicked partners from South East Asia, Mid-dle East and South America which have the capabilities and know how to collaborate with travel trade ex-perts from the sub-continent,” said Priya Rupani- VP Marc Asia.

MarcAsia to represent two DMCs

Cyprus Tourism forays into India

Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) will foray into the tourism

market in India with incentives- and MICE-centric tourism products. As part of CTO’s strategic plan to at-tract more tourists from the Indian subcontinent, it will hold a two-city roadshow in Delhi and Mumbai on October 23 and 25 respectively. Cyprus plans to roll out a series of promotional activities post its road-shows. During the initial phase, CTO will focus on the conference and incentive markets in India be-sides encouraging affluent Indian consumers to experience Cyprus with affordable holiday packages.

Vassilis Theocharides, Direc-tor, Dubai Office, said: “We are constantly on the lookout for new business activities in newer growth markets with high potential for growth. As a new destination with well developed infrastructure for MICE activities, we can assist cor-porates with business solutions for their conference and event needs.”

Accor's budget hotel Formule1 opens in Bangalore

Accor launched Hotel Formule1 at Whitefield in Bangalore, the hotel’s first in the South of India following the openings in the North and West. The hotel is aimed at the budget and quality conscious traveller, at

an affordable price.

The property has modern, soundproof rooms with ensuite bathrooms, flat screen TVs with international channels, 24/7-security access, keycard-operated lifts and door locks, CCTV cameras and 24-hour vending machines. Located adjacent to the hotel is a restaurant operated by a third party ’Khaja Chowk’. Guests can also enjoy complimentary Wi-Fi.


10>>

A lot is being written about the rising Indian middle class, the discern-

ing traveller, the road less travelled, discovering new roads and so on. On one hand, while the fall in the rupee has impacted travel plans, increased spending power, passion for travel, social status and changing lifestyles will continue to steer the businesses of airlines, hotels and tourism across the globe, the budgets and itineraries being the variables.

Figures of tourist arrivals for 2013“Turkey received 24.600 Indian travellers in the first four months of 2013. The number was 6.6 million from all around the world in the same period,” said Ozgur Ayturk, Culture and Tourism Counselor, Turkish Em-bassy India.

Bejan Dinshaw, Country Manager, India, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority said: “During the first half

of this year, some 1,333,339 guests checked into Abu Dhabi accommo-dation delivering 4,226,604 guest nights , a rise of 25% over the same period in 2012.”

“On an average, the guest stayed 3.17 nights which is up to 12% over last year, with an occupancy rate of 71% which is up to 8% over 2012. In-dia has the top slot as the emirate’s largest overseas source market, thus

toppling the UK into second place. About 80,179 Indian nationals stayed in Abu Dhabi’s hotels from January until the end of June 2013 with a 22% rise last year. That accounted for 334,238 guest nights up to 43% over 2012 and staying on an average of 4.17 nights with an increase of 17%,” he added.

Huzan Fraser, India Representative, Trinidad & Tobago, said she hoped to see a rise in Indian tourists to T&T in 2013. Trinidad and Tobago received 3,500 tourists last year from India.

Mischa Mannix-Opie, Regional Manager - South & South East Asia at Tourism New Zealand explains that the total arrivals from India for the year ending March 2013 were 30,000 (+3.8%). “The holiday arrival figures for the year ending March 2013 were 14,848 (+10.1%). We are recording a steady growth in arriv-als from India and are expecting the trend to continue.”

Celia Ho, Regional Manager South and South East Asia, Tourism Victo-ria, said: “India is one of the fastest growing markets for Melbourne

Cover Story

Soma BhattacharyaMauritius Tourism Promotion Authority

Mauritius is a popular destination and the number of tourists travelling to Mauritius has increased over a period of time. With the growing number of people travel-ling abroad, it is evident that tourism is no longer only meant for the elite or a whim of selective groups.

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

The Indian traveller is on the move, in search of the exotic and esoteric. And all the tourism boards out there

want to cash in on this trend in an effective manner.

Balloon over Canterbury, New Zealand

Le Voyage Le Voyage


12>>

tourism. There were 73,000 visitors from India to Victoria with an associ-ated spend of $218.4 million, with an increase in visitor numbers of 17.3% over the previous year till March 2013. For this year March 2013, visitors from India spent 4.0 million nights in Victoria, with an increase of 1.2% from the previous year. Visita-tion from India is anticipated to grow at 7.2%, the highest rate of growth for any source market for Victoria.” Esther Grob, Area Manager Rus-sia, India, Asia, Zurich Tourism says: “From January - May 2013, 43,668 overnights at Zürich region from In-dia, this is compared to 2012 a slight plus of 0.4%.”

Sanjay Sondhi, Country Director-Visit Indonesia Tourism Office went on to add that India was proving to be a fast-emerging new market for Indone-sia. “118,029 Indian visitors till July 2013 constituted a (approx. 15%) im-provement over last year July 2012.”

Likewise, India happens to be Oman’s largest inbound market and in 2012, tourist arrivals to Oman were 221,623. “There has been a 35.6 % change in tourist arrivals in

2012 as compared to 2011 which was 16,345,” says Lubaina Sheera-zi, India Representative, Ministry of Tourism, the Sultanate of Oman.

Indian travellers: VFR, FITs, busi-ness and leisureOzgur says Turkey hosts a growing number of Indian travelers and the Indian market is a vigorously boom-ing. Turkey received 91,000 travel-ers from India last year with a 24% growth rate over 2011 and the ex-pected is approximately 30% growth rate for this year. Since 80 percent of the total travelers are from leisure whereas the rest is for business.

“Malaysia has always been a favour-ite destination for Indians. VFR - 8.2%, FITs - 73.9%, Business - 18%,” said Manoharan Periasamy, Director, Tourism Malaysia.

Soma Bhattacharya, Destination Manager, Mauritius Tourism Promo-tion Authority explains: “Mauritius has always been a popular destina-tion amongst Indians and continues to be. The major percentage of tour-ists travelling from India is for leisure followed by MICE. Mauritius in the

Cover Story

Mischa Mannix-OpieTourism New Zealand

India is an emerg-ing market for Tour-ism New Zealand and visitors are seeking experienc-es rather than just ‘sightseeing’.

Mulu National Park, Malaysia Musandam, Oman

12>>

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recent years, have witnessed a steady growth in terms of number of tourists travelling from India to Mau-ritius.”

In the year 2000-2009, Indian arriv-als increased year on year by 14% and in 2009-2011, the growth was 19%. Despite the recession and slow economic growth in the Indian mar-ket, the number of travellers going to Mauritius has increased. In 2012, Mauritius received 55197 arrivals. An increase in 15.6% tourist arrival was achieved till April 2013. The board aims to target 100,000 tour-ists from India in the near future,” she added.

Pourushasp Mehta - Destination Manager, TRAC Representations-Jamaica Tourism Board says: “Jamai-ca is perceived as a high-end niche destination offering unconventional holiday experience, exclusive and customised for the high net worth individual. In India, Mumbai and New Delhi are the key markets for Ja-maica. Considering the niche appeal of the destination, JTB is gaining a strong foothold in these key markets and eventually expand to other po-tential cities in India.” “The growth percent in stopover ar-rivals by permanent residents from India in January – April 2013 as com-pared to January – April 2012 has

been 29.00%. The growth percent in stopover arrivals by permanent resi-dents from India in Jan – Dec 2012 as compared to Jan – Dec 2011 has been 3.4%.

The growth percent in stopover ar-rivals by permanent residents from India in January – December 2012 as compared to January – December 2010 has been 22.00%. The growth percent in stop over arrivals by per-manent residents from India in Janu-ary – December 2012, as compared to the same period in 2009, has been 11.6%,” he said. “Jamaica was named the world’s most romantic destination at the

Grand Finale of the World Travel Awards 2012 which was held in India.

In addition to winning the award for world’s most romantic destination, Jamaica was recognised for the sev-enth consecutive year as the world’s leading cruise destination. Jamaica also won Caribbean’s leading sports tourism destination, leading destina-tion and leading tourist board,” he added.Earlier, Oman was looked at by Indi-ans only for its business and com-mercial prospects, but that percep-tion has slowly undergone a change. Since it is a short haul destination from India, Oman is becoming popu-

Cover Story

Pourashasp MehtaJamaica Tourist Board

Jamaica is a high end niche destination of-fering aspirational and unconventional holi-day experience, exclusive and customized for the high net worth individual. Indians are willing to spend more and more on unique and experiential accommoda-tion, moving beyond star category rooms and hotels.

Sarawak, Malaysia

Zurich Tourism


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lar with the outbound tourists from India. Indians are looking for a new, niche destination and Oman has a lot to offer in terms of culture, herit-age and adventure activities, said Lubaina.

Around 55,000 Indians travelled to Jordan in 2012, which was a mix of FIT, leisure and the MICE traveller,”

added Munnmunn Marwah, General Manager, Think Strawberries, representative, Jordan Tourism Baord, India Office.

Mischa explains that approximately half of the arrivals from India are vis-iting New Zealand specifically for the purpose of a holiday, while 8% are business visitors and the remaining

visitors have various other purposes for their visit. Sanjay says Indian travellers to Indo-nesia comprise VFR -15%, Business – 25% and FIT/Leisure – 60%.

Trends of Indian travellers In the opinion of Esther, the Indians are spending in Switzerland per day in average CHF300 including accommo-

dation, meals, excursions, shopping, as compared to other countries like Australia(CHF250), China(CHF350), Korea(CHF250), Japan(CHF400). In-dians mostly travel in small family/friends groups. Honeymoon trips to Switzerland are still very common.

“The Indians love train trips in Swit-zerland, the mountains, excursions and shopping. The main travel season is May – August, Zürich has a market share of 24.3% (2012) and is the sec-ond most-visited region in Switzerland after Lucerne,” she added.

Ozgur says apart from traditional business and leisure travel, Indians also travel for segments like meet-ings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE), wellness, adven-ture, luxury and spiritual tourism. With breathtaking natural beauty, unique historical and archaeological places, some of the best hotel and touristic infrastructure and a tradition of hospitality at competitive prices, Turkey has a lot offer discerning In-dian travellers.

“Results reveal that respondents rat-ed Turkey quite high due to its most important attributes- affordability, at-tractions and accountability. Females tended to have higher perception about the scenic beauty and shop-ping opportunities. In terms of age, respondents aged 60 years old and above significantly perceived posi-tively on accountability, attractions and accessibility. It could be that they considered more about the ability of

Cover Story

Lubaina SheeraziMinistry of Tourism, Oman

Oman has a lot to offer in terms of culture, heritage and adventure activities. Indians have become more adventurous and are willing to go beyond the regular itinerary.

Legoland, Malaysia

Ledge Bungy, New Zealand


18>>

Turkey to provide them with overall quality that could relax them, in addi-tion to the ease of reaching the host city and other places within the coun-try,” he says.

“Affordability factor was perceived highly by the group aged 31 to 40 years. The group aged 30 years and below, rated amenities higher than other age groups. This is because leisure services attract more young people. Overall, visitors are very hap-py with the hospitality and tourism services received and most impor-tantly, they have come back talking about the beauty and hospitality of Turkey. Of course, the kind of pack-ages offered and how well aware and attracted they are to Turkey, influence their choice. Attraction is the major factor and Turkey is well equipped with international standard meeting and convention facilities, beautiful hotels complemented by breathtak-ing scenery to suit various purposes and budgets,” he added.

Mischa said that the key trend that she observed was that visitors were seeking experiences rather than just sightseeing. “We receive a lot of que-ries regarding events, food and wine tours, Maori cultural experiences, walks, self-drive and of course, ad-venture sports. This is good for the industry as it helps us showcase our offerings beyond the stunning land-scapes. The Hobbit repeated the magic of the Lord of The Rings and has lifted our country profile and is motivating international visitors to travel to New Zealand.”

On average, an Indian visitor spends NZD 3,428 per visit, excluding air-fare. The average stay is around 12-15 days. Honeymooners, family vaca-tioners, adventure sports enthusiasts and family vacationers are the main types of travellers from India to New Zealand.

Manoharan said that India had grown

into a mature market from what it had been earlier. The trend is more to-wards tailor-made packages and tours and not following a strict regimen as before. A recent survey revealed that people the world over spend almost 40% of their spare income or savings on exploring new places for leisure. Today, there is a strong demand for travel from families, young people, women and seniors.

“Some of the factors contributing to the increasing levels of travel across the globe are higher comfort levels with international travel, the liberali-zation of air transport and increased fluency in English. In fact, interna-tional travel is registering growth of as high as 30% and Kuala Lumpur is one of the top destinations for inter-national holiday-makers, according to travel industry experts,” he says.

A maturing Indian traveller aims to spend more on food, shopping and accommodation rather than on air tickets. These are repeat travellers and spend more days at one destina-tion, experiencing and exploring the place in detail. There are different types of travellers like first time trav-ellers, repeat travellers (leisure and corporate) and experiential or adven-turous traveller. The most interesting one are the food lovers,” he added.

Abu Dhabi is witnessing a good and steady increase in the number of In-dian guests staying at Abu Dhabi ho-tels. In the first half of 2013, Indian guests accounted for 334,238 guest nights up to 43% on 2012 and stayed on an average of 4.17 nights with an increase of 17%. “All in all, the des-tination caters to a wide segment of travellers right from honeymooners to corporate to DINKS (Double Income No Kids) to VFRs and FITs. We believe arrivals to be a mix of business and leisure travellers, but will know more when the results of our latest interna-tional visitor survey are known in the next few months,” says Bejan.

Cover Story

Sanjay SondhiVisit Indonesia Tourism Office

The Indian out-bound market has grown exponentially and Indians have become discerning travellers looking for new destinations.

Great Ocean Road, Victoria

18>>

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Huzan says: “The Indian outbound trav-eller is savvy and is now beginning to splurge on his holiday trips. Luxury holi-days are also now emerging as a new trend and more people are looking for exotic locations. In the past year, travel has matured by the day. Honeymoon trips are also gaining importance along with senior and women travel seg-ments. Exotic and undiscovered desti-nations are gaining popularity.” “With high disposable incomes and changing preferences, Indian travel-lers are now beginning to spend more while on their holiday trips. Indian travellers visiting the USA are now looking at indulging into villa stays at the Caribbean’s, shopping, dining and sightseeing tours,” she added.Soma explains that the average spending habit of the Indian travel-ler has grown in the last few years. The consumer spending is approxi-mately USD 360 per person per day. Nowadays travellers like to indulge in different adventurous sports such as scuba diving, walk with the lions, sky diving, sub-scooter, food, shop-ping, etc. The average duration of stay in Mauritius of Indian travellers is 6 nights and 7 days. The number of tourists travelling to Mauritius has increased over a period of time.

The visitors to Mauritius range from honeymooners, family, experiential to luxury travellers. While beautiful land-scapes, white sand beaches, golf, spa, adventure sports and penchant

for shopping continue to attract trav-ellers, the effort is to focus on new experiences such as soft adventures. The latest attraction has been the interaction with cubs, in addition to walk with lions and interacting with cheetahs, which are popular among Indians travelling to Mauritius. It is a chance to experience and study the natural behaviour of the wild life in the lap of nature.“The beauty of the cubs can really be appreciated closely, as part of the one-on-one experience with the wildlife. To add to the adventure sports, MTPA added Sea Karting for the enthusiastic tourists who love to enjoy water sports. One can discover the beauty of the Mauritian lagoons whilst driving at a Kart. For the expe-riential Indian traveller, Mauritius has various activities that include sky div-ing, adventure sports, yachting, glass boat adventure, undersea walk, para-sailing, scuba diving,” she added.

Celia explains that India has im-mense potential as a market for Mel-bourne. “With an increasing amount of disposable income in the coun-try, we are seeing more individuals, couples and families exploring inter-national destinations and travelling to Melbourne. There is tremendous opportunity in this region and we believe that with more awareness on the State of Victoria, Indians will discover a new and amazing destina-tion to travel to. Indians are willing

Celia HoTourism Victoria

India is one of the fastest growing markets for Tour-ism Victoria. They are spending more for a memorable, intriguing holiday.

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Sky Diving, Mauritius


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to spend more for a memorable and intriguing travel and holiday experi-ence. Indian leisure travellers have become more sophisticated and are looking beyond established South-east Asian destinations for their next overseas holiday. For Melbourne, this is augmented by significant num-bers travelling to visit their friends and relatives in the state, as well as for sporting and cultural events. The growing segments in the India market include free and independent travel, luxury, honeymoons and business re-lated travel.”

Lubaina stated: “The Indian traveller has now evolved from the plain itiner-ary follower to the experiential travel-ler. They travel not just for business but also purely for leisure, which is mainly due to the increasing dispos-able income, the rising stress levels resulting in the need for a break and to unwind. Changing trends we have noticed over a period of time is that VFR segment is a strong and consist-ent market, FITs is the fastest growing market, GITs primarily make up for first time travellers and seniors and MICE travel are becoming a strong market but primarily benefits short haul destinations.”

The average stay of any Indian in Oman is 4N/5D and they are willing to splurge for comfort and adventure activities. Indians today are also go-ing the ecofriendly holiday way.

Jordan is for the highly mature and evolved traveler. It appeals to people who are inclined towards exploring something exotic which goes beyond the beaten track. Usually the stand-ard stay averages out to about 4 nights.

Promotional CampaignsVITO India carried out various mar-keting initiatives to increase Indian footfall into Indonesia. “We have had previously and will continue to have promotional campaigns such as par-

ticipation in tourism fairs, road shows and joint activities with airlines, host FAM tours for influential media and travel partners as well as organising sales missions to educate the travel trade about Indonesia,” Sanjay said. Though VITO India started its promo-tions with a focus on metro cities, from last quarter of last year it start-ed activities in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities. It organised destination presentation in Nagpur, Coimbatore, Trichy, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Nashik and Aurangabad to name a few. This year, it aims to continue educating and promoting In-donesia among these markets.

Esther says: “We have a strong co-operation with Switzerland Tourism India for different promotion cam-paigns off and online within the tar-get groups travel trade, end consum-ers and media.”

Turkey Tourism Board has regularly participated in trade shows and conventions and held seminars for travel agents to market. It has also launched a new marketing campaign called Million Reasons that show-cases the enchanting and rich expe-riences that the country has to offer and aims to stimulate the curiosity of the Indian travellers. The campaign includes a 30-second TV advertise-ment supported by online, print and outdoor elements.

Trinidad and Tobago is currently fo-cusing on some really exciting prod-ucts that it will continue to promote. In the past year, it organised two FAM trips to T&T with some leading travel agents as well as media journalists. This year, it plans to go a step fur-ther by investing in joint co-operative campaigns to help create awareness among the travel trade as a primary focus.

Tourism New Zealand works with a range of commercial partners in the India market. It has significant part-nerships with airlines including Sin-

Cover Story

Manoharan PeriasamyDirector, Tourism Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur is a leading destina-tion. A maturing Indian traveller aims to spend more on food, shopping and accommodation.

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Bako National Park, Malaysia


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gapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, for joint advertising and marketing campaigns.

Currently, Tourism New Zealand has live campaigns with Thomas Cook, Make My Trip, eezego1.com and works with other travel agent part-ners throughout the year. Their trade partners are being trained to grow their selling capability by overhaul-ing the Kiwi Specialist retail training programme, under the newly named 100% Pure New Zealand Specialist Programme and introducing more in-centives for travel agents.

MTPA’s new campaigns will focus on quality tailored offerings that appeal to the Indian audience. In future, it is planning a pan-India ad campaign to create more visibility and augment product know how. Also to catch the eyes of young generation Mauritius

tourism will be soon launching pro-motions on social media sites.

Jamaican Tourism Board’s vision for 2013 is to position Jamaica as a vi-brant and distinctive premier tourist destination in the Caribbean target-ing the matured Indian traveller. Ef-fort has been to promote Jamaica as a standalone destination and as an add-on destination for people travel-ling to the USA. The board uses an integrated marketing strategy with maximum thrust on public relations, and promotional activities dovetailing into one message. These integrated tactics are used to reach the travel trade as well as consumers.

Jamaican Tourism Board has partici-pated in travel trade Fairs like SATTE and OTM over the last few years providing a platform to Interface be-tween Jamaican Suppliers and India

Travel Agents. Another reason which contributes to the footfall of visitors year-round is the festivals and events happening every month, which brings out the vibrant colours and Jamaican culture. It aims at promoting world renowned festivals in Jamaica like 23rd International Jazz festival, Reg-gae Sumfest 2013 and the Jamaica Restaurant Week in November in the Indian market. Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Author-ity is deploying a well-thought out strategy to tap the huge potential of the evolving Indian market, which includes promotional campaigns planned for both travel trade and the media. It plans to steer focus on the destination’s geographic diversity, natural assets, superb service levels, excellent business events infrastruc-ture and growing attractions portfolio.

It has joint promotions with the travel

Bejan DinshawAbu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority

India holds the top position as the emirate’s largest overseas source market and witness-es a good and steady increase in the num-ber of Indians staying at Abu Dhabi.

Melbourne City Skyline

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trade from time to time and is in the process of launching another one month campaign with a leading tour operator to increase its visibility and reach among the right set of target audience.

Tourism Malaysia organises many en-tertaining events throughout the year. It recently organised F1 corporate event in Bangalore and Mumbai and will be organising golf events for wom-en as well as food festivals and FAMs.

In 2012, Tourism Victoria launched the ‘Melbourne NOW!’ campaign for the Indian travel industry and its customers which will showcase the sophistication of Melbourne city, its major hallmark events, the nature and wildlife experiences, and food and wine experiences. The two-stage campaign commenced with trade and consumer engagement activity that increased awareness of Victoria’s key offerings and brand attributes.

Travel agents were invited to develop and submit a range of new, innovative and commercially viable travel itiner-aries, which included a minimum four night stay, with at least one night to be spent in regional Victoria; and in-clude at least two paid attractions in Melbourne and two paid attractions in regional Victoria. Trade partners responded with over 120 itineraries submitted from 71 agencies across India. Of these, 39 were selected for inclusion in the online consumer en-gagement campaign.

The online consumer engagement campaign was hosted on Facebook. Through a ‘photo album’ style of en-gagement, visitors to the page were encouraged to select their favourite experiences in Melbourne and Victo-ria by placing them into their album. Once they selected their preferred ex-periences, the itineraries most close-ly matching their selections were de-livered to them.

Consumers were asked to write a short paragraph on why they should win a trip to Victoria and voted for their favourite itinerary, whilst encour-aged friends to vote for them to go into the draw to win the major prize. By the end of the Facebook campaign period, the campaign had attracted over 200,000 Indian Facebook fans, and had been seen by over five mil-lion consumers based in India. There were both trade and consumer win-ners at the end of Phase One. The winning consumers were selected on the number of shares/likes of their photo albums, and their written sub-mission outlining why they should win the trip to Victoria. The winning agen-cies were those who had submitted the most popular itineraries. In Phase 2 of the campaign, the travel agents who created the winning itineraries were awarded with cooperative mar-keting funds (matched by the agent), which were used in conjunction with Tourism Victoria on campaigns to pro-mote their itineraries.

Ministry of Tourism, Oman has joined hands with Thomas Cook (India) of-fering a stopover in Oman as part of Thomas Cook India’s premium Eu-ropean Group Tours. Thomas Cook India’s UK-Europe bound premium travellers will now have a chance to visit Oman through the optional two-day stopover in Muscat. This pack-age promotion is expected to attract over 800 passengers from May to September, 2013. The Sultanate of Oman also made changes to its tourism visa arrangements last year. These allow stopover passengers to enjoy a stay up to 10 days at a cost of 5 Omani Rial.

The Jordan Tourism Board has run promotional videos in PVR Cinemas in select cities, which was followed by online banner ads and video clips on Yahoo! earlier this year. Through the year, it also ran the Jordan Specialist Online Programme for travel agents to generate destination exclusive ex-

Cover Story

Ozgur AyturkTurkish Embassy in India

The Indian market is booming and there is a growing num-ber of Indian travel-lers coming in for leisure holidays.

Goldeneye Resort, Jamaica

Dunns River, Jamaica

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perts and to increase the knowledge about Jordan among travel agents. This will enable the agents to draw up itineraries and give appropriate advice to travelers who are looking at Jordan as a destination,” said Mun-nmunn.

Air connectivity to IndiaAir connectivity to Indonesia from In-dia is fairly good with major airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways, etc. connecting various cities in India to Indonesia. Mauritius has direct connectivity and currently there are seven flights per week from New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai to Mauritius.

It is a visa-on-arrival system for Indi-ans travelling to Jamaica. The UK and the USA are the closest entry points to the third largest island in the Car-ibbean Sea, whose international airports are Donald Sangster Inter-national Airport in Montego Bay and Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.

As for Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways, the national carrier of UAE, operates a total of 63 flights to Abu Dhabi from Mumbai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hy-derabad, Chennai, Trivandrum, Cali-cut, Bangalore and Kochi.

Apart from Etihad, Air India and Jet Airways also provide direct connectiv-ity. “Following Etihad Airways equity stake in Jet Airways, these numbers

are stipulated to go up strikingly, also increasing online points to 23 Indian cities,” added Bejan.

Trinidad and Tobago, high-end des-tinations that they are, attract lei-sure, FIT and honeymoon segments. The entry to the islands for Indians is visa-free, which is a benefit while promoting the destination. Both are easily accessible from the UK and the USA and have a lot to offer in terms of beaches, culture, carnival, outdoor adventure, natural and adventure ac-tivities as well. Currently six airlines, namely British Airways, Air India, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Jet Airways and Emirates Airlines connect to T&T from India either through USA or UK.

In the past one year, connectiv-ity to T&T has improved with Etihad Airways flights to South America, Virgin Atlantic flights from Delhi to New York’s JFK via London and Jet Airways’ direct flights to the USA. The Caribbean Airlines also has an-nounced four weekly non-stop flights on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays to London and thrice weekly services via Bridgetown, Bar-bados and onward to London, thus facilitating a daily service out of Trini-dad.

The increased flights and direct ac-cess from the Caribbean Airlines to T&T from June this year from London provide a great opportunity to work closely with the carrier for better con-

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Petra by night, Jordan

Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi

Fins Beach, Oman


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nectivity to the destination.

Esther says that Qatar Airways flies four times a week from 12 Indian cities via Doha to Zürich. The Swiss International Airlines operates daily direct flight from Mumbai and Delhi to Zürich.

Turkish Airlines has direct daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Istanbul and they have applied for necessary permission from the Indian authori-ties to double up the same, as well as to add new destinations within India like Bangalore, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, etc. Besides Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and Air Arabia also have daily connecting flights from various cities of India to enable passengers to reach most destinations in Turkey within the same day, thus saving precious time. With direct and easily accessible flights to Istanbul, Antalya, Ankara, Agri, Adiyaman and Adana, there has been a boost in the segment.

For New Zealand, there are no direct flights from India to New Zealand presently. Connecting flights on Ma-laysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, and Cathay Pacific with stopovers in their respective hubs are available. “We keep collaborating with our airline partners to come up with attractive offers for Indian trav-ellers to visit New Zealand. Recently, we tied up with Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines in campaigns to at-tract Indian families to visit our coun-try,” added Mischa.

Manoharan explains: “We are for-tunate to have received such strong support from the Indian travel trade industry. Air links have improved sig-nificantly over the years and at pre-sent there are more than 96 direct flights per week from India to Ma-laysia. Air Asia runs daily flights from Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Kolkata to Malaysia. Malay-sia Airlines and Air Asia have helped to boost Indian footfalls in Malaysia.” India has a good connectivity to Mel-bourne with a range of international flights flying to the capital of Victoria that includes Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and a few more. Air India has commenced daily 787 Dreamliner service to and from Melbourne. Tour-ism Victoria believes that this initia-tive will generate substantial visitor growth to Melbourne from India.

Oman is well connected through air by Oman Air, Jet Airways, Air India and Indigo. Its national carrier Oman Air operates from 10 different locations in India. Approximately, two and a

half hours away by air from Mumbai and three and a half hours away from Delhi, Oman is the ideal short haul destination for an idyllic break.

Royal Jordanian is the national carrier of Jordan that flies direct into Amman from Delhi and Mumbai. The flight duration is 6.5 hours from New Delhi and 6 hours from Mumbai. The other airlines which fly into Jordan are Gulf Air, Etihad Airways, Emirates, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways.

New ProductsTurkey Tourism Board will launch its new website in the near future. It has also planned an array of contests and activities to promote Turkey as the ide-al tourist destination. It recently start-ed the e-visa system for citizens of 94 countries including India. Indian citi-zens who hold a valid Schengen visa or a valid visa from any of the OECD member countries or a valid residence permit in these countries can get their e-visa by using www.evisa.gov.tr with-out going to the Embassy or the Con-sulate. Apart from these, it is planning a five-city road show, in association with Turkish Hoteliers Federation and Travel Agents Association of Turkey, like the one it had organised last year in November.

Tourism New Zealand runs on a three-year marketing plan cycle, that ends in June. In the last three years, New Zea-land was promoted as an attractive destination for families, MICE travel-lers and honeymooners among others.

Trinidad & Tobago being a new and unexplored leisure destination for In-dians, some of the tourism products on offer there are beach, culture, car-nival, outdoor, leisure, history, nature and adventure sport tourism. Apart from these events, one can also in-dulge in some astonishing activities ranging from watersports to bird watching, diving to exploring the rain-forest at Tobago.

“Visitors can now add Ziplining to the wide range of eco and soft adventure activities that can be pursued during their holiday. These islands join other destinations in the Caribbean in mak-ing this increasingly popular activity available to both thrill seekers and adventure lovers. Zip lines are the best way to get a bird’s eye view of the breathtaking beauty at Macqueripe Bay, Chaguaramas, whilst at the same time experiencing all of the exhilara-tion that comes with such a heart-stopping experience,” said Huzan.

“The cultural aspect of T&T is one of the most important elements, what with the destination also known as

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the home of the Caribbean Carnival. As an island, there are a lot of water-based activities like cruising, yachting and surfing that one can indulge in. The destination is also blessed with the flora and fauna of South America, which makes the islands an excel-lent ecotourism destination. “Hon-eymoon couples can head straight to Tobago for a complete Caribbean honeymoon and will be truly amazed with what the destination has to of-fer them. One of the finest properties is the Stone Haven Villa, which has been voted by CNN.com as one of the top 10 Most Romantic Caribbean Re-treats,” she said.

T&T also received a taste of Bol-lywood when the movie, ‘Dulha Mil Gaya’ starring Shahrukh Khan, Su-shmita Sen, Fardeen Khan and Ishita Sharma, was filmed in Trinidad and Tobago for over a month and in 2007, making it the first Bollywood film to be shot there.

Manoharan explains: “The new tour-ism products are Legoland Malaysia, which is Asia’s first Legoland theme park and the sixth worldwide, will of-fer 40 rides, shows and displays of the famous Lego bricks of Denmark. The Sanrio Hello Kitty Town opened in October 2012, located in Puteri Har-bour Theme Park is the first theme park outside Japan. An helicopter tour is an exciting way to observe Malay-sia’s varied terrain, and an aerial view of skyscrapers and other manmade landmarks. The tours are available at major tourist destinations, namely in Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and Sabah.”

With regard to Indonesia, Bali, Jakar-ta, Bintan and Batam have been the most popular destinations amongst Indian travellers. VITO’s focus in 2013 will be to promote Indonesia beyond Bali. Bali remains an icon for Indo-nesia but the tourism board will con-tinue to promote destinations beyond Bali such as North Sumatra – Lake Toba, Jakarta -thousand island, Old

city Jakarta, Yogjakarta-Borobudur Temple and Prambanan Temple East Java-Mt. Bromo, Tengger culture, Mt. Semeru, Bali - Menjangan Island and Pemuteran, West Bali West Nusa Tenggara- Rinjani Mountain, Lombok, East Nusa Tenggara - Komodo Island. For incentive groups seeking some-thing different, Oman offers a host of wide-ranging options. It is now being known for its array of tourist activities on offer such as water sports, rock climbing, dune bashing, trekking, cave exploration, dolphin watching and shopping in the souks. The coun-try also features historic forts and castles, which are among many cul-tural landmarks that give the country its unique character.

“The latest offering from Oman is Jebel Sifah, a relaxing 45-minute drive from Muscat, travelling through winding mountain roads and valleys into a contemporary development. Jebel Sifah captures a space of 6.2 million square metres, making it the

Huzan FraserTrinidad & Tobago

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The Indian outbound traveller is savvy and beginning to splurge on holiday trips. Luxury holidays are also emerging as a new trend and more people are looking for exotic locations.

Langkawi, Malaysia

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most prevalent ongoing development in the country. The space borders the Hajjar Mountains and the Gulf of Oman and has an 18-hole PGA Golf Course, a large inland Marina, Marina Town. The project introduces international brand hotels into the re-gion with lavish names, as the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Missoni, the Sifawy Boutique Hotel, the first Marina front hotel in an Integrated Tourism Complexes (ITC) of Oman,” stated Lubaina.

“Travellers can go mountain climb-ing in the spectacular Hajjar Moun-tains, where the growing popularity of team-building expeditions lends itself to some truly stunning views and experiences. After a day climb-ing up the 3,000m high peak of Jebel Shams, an overnight accommodation option is to stay at a camp retreat set amongst the dramatic landscape of this mountain,” she said.

“Sustainable and eco-tourism also feature highly in the latest line-up of options offered as part of the Omani incentives market. The once-in-a-life-time view of green turtles nesting on the beaches of Ras al-Jinz is a breath-taking opportunity, where visitors can be provided luxury accommodation in the turtle sanctuary itself. We are positioning Oman as an upcoming MICE destination with the setting up of a world-class conference facility by 2017. The two-million sq m Oman

Convention and Exhibition Centre has a 3,000-seat Convention Centre, four hotels and serviced apartments sup-ported by a major regional retail facil-ity,” she added.

Munnmunn explains: “Petra is home to giant red mountains and vast mausoleums and is Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tour-ist attraction. It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here over 2000 years ago, turning it into an impor-tant junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. Entrance to the city is through the Siq, a nar-row gorge, over 1 km in length, which is flanked on either side by soaring, 80m high cliffs. The colours and for-mations of the rocks are dazzling. At the end of the Siq, you will catch your first glimpse of Al-Khazneh (Treasury). A massive façade, 30m wide and 43m high, carved out of the sheer, dusky pink rock-face and dwarfing everything around it. It was carved in the early first century as the tomb of an important Nabataean king and represents the engineering genius of these ancient people. Wadi Rum is a stupendous, timeless place, virtually untouched by humanity and its destructive forces.”

Dead Sea the world’s most amazing place; the Jordan Rift Valley is a dra-

matic, beautiful landscape, which at the Dead Sea, is over 400m (1,312 ft.) below sea level. The lowest point on the face of the earth, this stretch of water receives a number of incom-ing rivers, including River Jordan. The Jordanian east coast of the Dead Sea has evolved into a major hub of both religious, health and wellness tourism in the region. Aqaba is a fun place. “It is a microcosm of all the good things Jordan has to offer, including a fasci-nating history, with some outstanding sites, excellent hotels and activities superb visitor facilities, shopping, and friendly people, who enjoy nothing more than making sure that their visi-tors have a good time,” she added.

Indians are willing to spend more on unique, experiential accommodation, beyond star category rooms and ho-tels. They are booking luxury-tented accommodations, double pool villas and historically luxurious suites when they travel abroad. This has made them the highest spenders on an av-erage when travelling overseas. They are discovering self-drive holidays for the luxury of exploring a destination at their own pace. They are indulg-ing in vintage car drive and Ferrari self-drives. The evolved Indian travel-ler dreams to experience Hotels and resorts like Half Moon and Golden Eye, which are the epitome of luxu-ry. Jamaica offers the world’s most renowned all-inclusive honeymoon resorts – Sandals Montego Bay and Couples Sans Souci, Ocho Rios. A

paradise for avid shoppers, from orig-inal Jamaican Blue mountain coffee to Appleton rum, straw-hats and ce-ramics to Reggae music and clothing, Jamaica offers a gamut of luxury and entertainment options for the avid traveller,” said Pourushasp.

Abu Dhabi has great attractions like the world’s fastest rollercoaster at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, an ex-hibition at Saadiyat Island, the fu-ture home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi - the Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, besides the dunes on a desert safari or golf on a championship course. “The new-est entrant is the swanky Ritz Carl-ton Abu Dhabi, Grand Canal offering a touch of Venetian glamour on the banks of a Gulf waterway. Besides, we have the Emirates Palace, ranked among the world’s most opulent ho-tels; two five-star resorts on Saadiyat Island- the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort and the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi; Anantara Hotels & Resorts, which operates three five-star properties in Abu Dhabi- the Eastern Mangroves Hotel & Spa, the Desert Islands Re-sort & Spa on the getaway island of Sir Bani Yas and the Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort & Spa which translates as the Mirage Palace and is hidden away among the towering dunes of the Liwa Desert, that marks the en-try to the famed Empty Quarter (Rub Al Khali), the world’s largest uninter-rupted sand mass,” added Bejan.

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MaDHya PRaDeSH: aBounDIng wITH DIVeRSe wILDLIfeMadhya Pradesh prides itself on several facets of attractions and wildlife is one of the most distinct of them all,

what with its sprawling national parks and forests sheltering multitudes of flora and fauna.

Incredible India

KANHA Sprawling over 940 sq km, Kanha Na-tional Park forms the core of the Kan-ha Tiger Reserve. Some of the animals spotted here are striped palm squirrel, common langur, jackal, chital, black buck, tiger, Indian hare, dhole, striped hyena, chausingha, ratel, Indian pan-golin. The birds here consist of cattle egret, pond heron, black ibis, peafowl, crested serpent, red wattled lapwing, woodpecker, parakeet, babbler, my-nah, Indian roller and grey hornbill, as well as water birds.

A stay for at least three nights is rec-ommended. There is no facility to en-cash traveller’s cheques.

Best Season- Mid October to June. (The park is closed from 1July to 15th Oct. due to rains)

By Air- Jabalpur (160 km), Raipur-240 km and Nagpur-335 km

By Rail- Jabalpur & Bilaspur

By Road- Daily buses to Kisli & Mukki from Jabalpur & back. Taxis on hire from Jabalpur, Bilaspur and Raipur.

Your Host- Baghira Log Huts,Kisli (07649) 277227 (MPT); Tourist Hostel,Kisli (07649) 277310 (MPT)Kanha Safari Lodge,Mukki (07636) 290715(MPT).

BANDHAVGARH The Bandhavgarh National park, best known for the highest tiger popula-tion in the country, teems with a vari-ety of wildlife. Also the original home of white tigers, spread over 448 sq km, Bandhavgarh has over 22 spe-cies of mammals and 250 species of birdlife. They are common lan-gurs, rhesus macaque, Asiatic jackal, Bengal fox, sloth bear, ratel, striped hyena, jungle cat, leopard, tiger, wild pig, spotted deer, chausingha, nilgai, chinkara, small Indian civet. Common birds found here are sarus crane, black kite, crested serpent ea-gle, black vulture, Egyptian Vulture, common peafowl, red jungle fowl, kingfisher and Indian roller.

Tourists can either opt for jeep safari or elephant back and a forest guide will accompany you.

How to reach- By Air- Jabalpur airport (190 km) By Rail- Jabalpur (190 km), Katni (102km) & Satna (120 km)

By Road- From Katni, Satna, Rewa, Jabalpur, Khajuraho to Tala Best Season- Mid October to June. Park is closed from 1 July to 15 October due to rains.

Your Host- White Tiger Forest Lodge (07627) 265406 (MPT)

PENCHNestled in the southern slopes of the Satpura ranges, Pench Tiger Reserve (757.90 sq km) comprises the Indira Priyadarshini Pench National Park and the Mowgli Pench Sanctuary.

Known as the original setting of the Jungle Book, the area is known for its huge population of gaur (Indian Bison), cheetal, sambhar, nilgai, wild dog and wild pig. The key preda-tors are tiger, leopard, wild dog and wolf, besides sloth bear, chousingha, chinkara, barking deer,palm civet, jungle cat, hyena and porcupine.

Over 285 species of birds as Mala-bar pied hornbill, Indian pitta, osprey,

grey- headed fishing eagle, white- eyed buzzard and vultures are found here. Tourists can go on a jeep safari or elephant rides to tour the forest.

Best Time- Best time to visit is sum-mer; open from 16 Oct to 30 June.

By Air- Nearest airport is Nagpur (92 km) and Jabalpur airport (200 km)

By Rail- Nagpur junction

By Road- Via Khawasa(12km), Chhindwara(120km), Seoni(60 km)

Your Host- Kipling’s Court (07695) 232830 (MPT)


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FIROZ FAZIL

Is Indian tourism ministry doing enough to promote domestic tour-

ism? Should the tourism ministry have a separate wing to promote do-mestic tourism just like in countries such as the UK?

These are questions that need to be answered by the industry stakehold-ers. We throw them to a cross section of industry stakeholders in the hope of arriving at an informed decision. Let’s hope this helps in some ways towards the promotion of our India’s attractions.

Are we doing enough? Should we have a separate wing with-in the tourism ministry to promote domestic tourism in countries like the UK?E.M. Najeeb, Chairman of ATE Group of Companies, doesn’t believe that India needs a separate wing for the promotion of domestic tourism.

He says: “The Ministry of Tourism is giving equal importance to domestic tourism like the inbound tourism. A country like India with many states, cultures, languages and attractions have tremendous possibility for pro-moting domestic tourism. At present, the tourism ministry can well handle the promotion of domestic tourism also, for which a separate wing is not very essential. The India Tourism has launched two new campaigns, one for international and the other for do-mestic. The international campaign is known as ‘Find What You Seek’ and the domestic campaign is named as ‘Go Beyond’. The ‘Go Beyond’ cam-paign focuses on promoting lesser-known domestic destinations for do-mestic and international tourists.”He feels that India should focus more on domestic tourism as a major economic activity than the inbound tourism, as international tourism de-pends on various socio-political, eco-

nomic and environmental develop-ments happening around the world.

“India is a vast destination with all at-tractions what we seek for, and can have a large tourism movement with-in,” says Najeeb.

Anita Mendiratta, Founder-Manag-ing Director of Cachet Consulting, says: “The Indian Tourism Ministry is acutely aware of what exactly it is that is driving, or hindering, growth of the tourism sector, and therefore un-locking its invaluable economic and social impact – creating jobs, gener-ating earnings, inspiring investment, protecting and preserving natural, cultural and historical environments, building identity, engaging citizenry and increasing national competitive-ness. The domestic tourism segment has become one of the pillars of the national tourism strategy, and its un-derlying policies.”

“The Tourism Ministry has embraced domestic tourism as not just a way of boosting tourism economy returns, but also increasing the pride and ap-preciation of Indians in their being a part of one of the greatest destina-tions on earth. For domestic tour-ism to continue to achieve impact, it needs to remain a part of the greater national tourism strategy and set of priorities.”

Subhash Goyal, Chairman of STIC Travel Group and IATO President, says “As domestic tourism continues to grow at double digit - in last count in 2011, it crossed 851 million. It is averaging a growth of 12% on YoY basis and its more progressive (when countries in Europe, USA, the flow is less and due to high exchange value of US$, it is more affordable to travel with in India).

“No doubt, since the 8th Five Year

All we are saying is...gIVe InCReDIBLe a CHanCe

Are we promoting Incredible India in the way it deserves to be promoted?


32>>Incredible India

Plan (1992-97) in the Central Plan, there is more thrust on development on domestic tourism and a separate division is looking into each segment of domestic tourism infrastructure, marketing, promotions, skill devel-opment, focused thematic prod-ucts- festivals & fairs, pilgrimage, wellness, sports, education, rural tourism and related activities with all state tourism departments. It is

taking the inputs of IATO and other domestic stakeholders like Domestic Tour Operators Association, hotels’ association, eco-tourism association, heritage association, adventure tour-ism association, ICPB, IRCTC, banks, tourism educational institutes and many more.”

“So there is a sincere effort from the government’s side. It has under-

stood that international tourism can prosper on a solid domestic tourism base and it is a business round the year and not at all disturbed by any negative events as Indians by nature will travel on socio-religious, busi-ness, education, pilgrimage, holidays and on any reason on any season. Our domestic tourism segment in the Ministry is well-organized and run by specific pre-determined norms. It

is a system much stronger than any European as may be seen from the volume which is now approaching one billion by 2013. Which European countries can’t even think to han-dle?” asks Subhash. S N Suresh, Manager - Marketing As-con Travel Pvt Ltd, is critical of the In-dian tourism for not doing enough for the promotion of domestic tourism.

He says: “India is an enchanted land endowed with lots of natural and man-made resources whose poten-tial can be harnessed, yet it is not so. The so-called ‘tourism industry’ itself is not recognized as an ‘industry’. Nevertheless, it can provide large-scale employment and earn lots of forex to our country. The Indian tour-ism industry which has got a minis-cule place in the central budget does not constitute even 1% of the world tourism statistics which is very de-plorable. For namesake we do have a “tourism ministry” which is headed by some government babus and some clerks who have no inkling about how and where the tourism needs to be promoted.”

He further said: “Considering the size and population of our country it is imperative to have a separate do-mestic tourism section which needs to have enough resources and in-formation to promote domestic tourism which can generate enough revenue. Post-9/11, fears of terror-ism led to unprecedented cancella-tions, many travel companies faced

EM NajeebATE Group of companies

Destination promotion is not the main responsibility of the trade; instead they have to focus more on experiential product devel-opment for domestic tourists based on the interest of domestic markets in India and they market it well. Suitable hotels, entertainment, transport and activities must be developed.


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lots of hardships, closures, laid off staff, etc.

The domestic tourism in India was the breadwinner during this period and flourished very well which itself is a great testimony, even though it is not even recognized as an industry.”

Is the Indian government taking ac-tion to grow domestic tourism?Anita feels that it is doing enough. She says: “Domestic tourism is prior-itized within the Ministry of Tourism, strategically and operationally. With the efforts undertaken by the Tour-ism Ministry as regards, for example, creation of reduced admission prices for Indian nationals at attractions of cultural / historical significance as well as in hotels and resorts, promo-tion of festivals and specific points of national pride across the nation, year-round encouragement of travel especially in off-season periods, and incentivisation of accelerated invest-ment into 2-star to 4-star hotels, demonstrates the tourism Ministry’s understanding of the value of Do-mestic Tourism, year-round.

The results speak for themselves: 669 million domestic tourists in 2009, 748 million in 2010 and., 851m in 2011. (Source: MOT India).”

Trade’s role Najeeb feels that it is the trade and the private sector tourism industry that drive the tourism business for-ward. “Destination promotion is not

their main responsibility; instead they have to concentrate more on experiential product development for domestic tourists based on the inter-est of the domestic tourism markets in India and they should market it well. Suitable hotels, entertainments, transportations, and tourist activities have to be developed to attract the tourists.”

“At the same time, destination pro-

motion should be taken up jointly by the state tourism as well as India Tourism. The trade should develop products, package them suitably, price them reasonably and publicize them well, and above all deliver the experiences promised without any gap between the promise and the delivery.”

Suresh says that the trade in India should come together and formulate

bodies which would earmark tourism sectors in the domestic circuits, im-prove infrastructure like roads, sani-tation, toilets, connectivity, boarding and lodging in and around the tour-ism places. “The hotels – keeping in mind the low budget of the Indian traveller – should be chosen in differ-ent categories (not more than three star) and should be with basic facili-ties with trained staff to handle the clients”

Incredible India

34>>

For tourist information on India, please contact:

Indiatourism - (Ministry of Tourism, Government of India) 123 M. Karve Road, Opp.Churchgate station, Mumbai 400 020

Tel: 022-22074333/34, Email: [email protected]: www.incredibleindia.org.

Ajanta Paintings, Aurangabad, Maharashtra


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He says that this is possible only if we have a firm tourism policy, proper tourism boards who in liaison with the Govt and private partnership can make this happen.

Anita also feels that the travel trade plays a critical role in influencing trav-eller decision-making. It is the travel trade which has the ability to either directly or indirectly plant the seed in the mind of travellers’ destination op-tions for their serious consideration.”

“Destination India has so much to

offer, so much to be discovered and enjoyed for travellers across the subcontinent. Recent weakening of the rupee has added an additional incentive to take a holiday within In-dia rather than going overseas. For the travel trade it is a win-win-win for their customers, their business and their nation,” she said.

According to Goyal, the trade is working as an extended hand of the Tourism Ministry by investing in infrastructure development under Public Private Partnerships, for mar-

keting new products as developed by states, working out new travel cir-cuits in each state to facilitate overall development of each state, working out educational tours, state destina-tion excellence training programme, awareness programme, tourism workshops/seminars involving state governments motivating them to improve infrastructure, provide fa-cilitation of movements of vehicles, reduce tax structure, holding confer-ence in states (which brings revenue to state/jobs to state) and bring out promotional materials.”

“It is the trade that has opened up many new states which were hither to not known in global or local markets like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Odisha and As-sam by holding tourism workshops and even IATO conventions, etc. The trade is the link between state and holidayers, both domestic and inter-national. Trade is doing what is the best possible:- Forming partnership with the state government in promo-tions, infrastructure development, creating new circuits, holding exhibi-tions/conventions in the state where states showcasing their products, signing MoUs with the state govern-ment for facilitation, air-connectivity, and all other areas which can make states to prosper in the field of tour-ism, earn revenue, create jobs and reach global markets through trade contacts overseas.”

Destination rebranding Should Indian tourism undertake a separate destination marketing and branding exercise other than Incred-ible India campaign to promote do-mestic tourism?

Domestic tourism is, and must re-main, part of a greater whole, says Anita. “The segment is a channel through which the ‘Incredible India’ brand needs to be brought to life in a way that compels Indians to travel within their own country – speaking to Indians in a way that inspires them based on their interests, their travel opportunities, their budgets, what they define as ‘incredible’ when it comes to holiday experiences – and naturally complements the global brand message. Alignment to the over-arching brand message and principles of activation is critical to effective, efficient, synergistic desti-nation promotion, across the country and throughout the year.” Najeeb feels that India Tourism should launch campaigns promot-ing locations within the country and motivating Indian travelers. “India Tourism has already launched a campaign slogan ‘Go Beyond’ for domestic tourism during the WTM 2012 by the Union Tourism Minister Dr. Chiranjeevi. I think we should in-tensify that campaign and its related efforts,” he added.

Domestic tourism, according to Suresh, earlier was confined only to visiting relatives and friends or a pilgrimage; but with the rise in the disposable income it has changed the perception of an average Indian tourist who would like to spend more time for leisure rather than visiting

Anita MendirattaCachet Consulting

The Tourism Ministry has embraced domestic tourism as not just a way of boosting tourism economy returns, but also increasing the ap-preciation of Indians in being a part of one of the greatest destinations. Domestic tour-ism needs to remain a part of the greater national tourism strategy and set of priorities.

Incredible India


36>> 37>>

relatives, friends or pilgrimage.

He further said: “Incredible India is an excellent marketing and branding exercise which has caught up very well. The marketing and branding of the domestic tourism is slightly dif-ferent than selling India as a whole to the outer world. The marketing segmentation for domestic tourism needs to be based on the age group, places of interest, price and afford-ability as Indian traveller is very price-sensitive. Domestic travel inside our country is as expensive as going to a neighbouring country which is why we see a surge in Indian travellers go-ing abroad. The very feeling of visiting a foreign land is something very dif-ferent, a much talked-about subject

among friends and relatives.”

There are many bottlenecks that re-main as the stumbling blocks in the promotion of domestic tourism sec-tor. What can be done to tide over these issues?

Bottlenecks What are the bottlenecks that remain as the stumbling blocks in the promo-tion of domestic tourism sector?

According to Najeeb, lack of infra-structure is one main impediment in the development of tourism in the country. “Domestic tourists in big numbers choose surface transport including rail and road. Unless good facilities are developed for the same,

it would be a distant dream. Taxation disparity in interstate transport move-ment is a major concern. The permit systems and tax structure among the states should be standardized. The centre should coordinate with the states and initiate a dialogue with them. Safety measures have to be ut-most priority on the roads as well as at the locations. The railway should provide more bogies for tourists. Garbage management and cleanli-ness should be made a priority at tourist locations, roads, and railway stations. Strategic actions should be triggered off for the same.”

According to Suresh, firstly bottle-necks are aplenty and will remain if we don’t recognize the industry and

Subhash GoyalIATO President

It is the trade that has opened up many new states which were hither to not known in global or local markets like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Odisha and Assam by holding tourism workshops and even IATO conventions, etc. The trade is the link between state and holidayers, both do-mestic and international.

Incredible India


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tag it as an industry.

“There needs to be change in the mindset that this billion dollar in-dustry which does not even have a industry status can be a big money spinner. Secondly government’s tax structure and facilitating regional tourism play-ers to improve their regions needs to be earmarked. Participation of state government tourism boards in coordi-nation with regional players, experts in promoting a particular area needs to be emphasized.

“Thirdly, the right pricing along with improvement in infrastructure, con-nectivity and promotion will ensure flow of tourist without much problems. Fourthly, we need to be proud of our heritage and culture which is by no means less than any other country on this globe. Despite being endowed with all the resources, our focus is not on tourism, but other industries which will and cannot flourish unless we are focussed,” said Suresh.

Anita says that central to the chal-lenges of domestic tourism for India, and an array of destinations across the globe, is inspiring travellers to invest their hard-eared holiday time and budgets into a holiday in their homeland rather than overseas. “Ul-timately, Indians are the strongest and most credible champions when it comes to promoting the destination. For this reason, it is vital that the people of India feel excited, invited, and proud, to travel and explore their own country – and discover for them-

selves why their country is seen by the world as truly ‘incredible.”

New policy initiativesShould we have new policy initiatives for the promotion of domestic tour-ism sector in India?

According to Suresh, firstly, the Indian Tourism Ministry should get the indus-try tag for the tourism industry; budg-ets need to be allocated for this pur-pose. New circuits need to be found and routes charted. Secondly, trained manpower, infrastructure, connectiv-ity needs to be improved, last but not the least the govt should work in tan-dem with the private bodies to work on pricing to woo the domestic tourist which can be sizeable amount of con-tribution in the economy.

Najeeb wants the India Tourism Min-istry to come out with new supportive policies focused to trigger off the do-mestic tourism sector in India. “Excel-lent campaigns should be launched partnering with State governments. Hotels, hospitality centers, transport, etc should be supported and incentiv-ized. A vision document namely ‘Do-mestic Tourism Vision 2023’ should be launched, which pronounces our policies for Domestic Tourism in India in the coming 10 years.”

As Anita says, maintaining an ap-proach to domestic tourism that con-nects to, and complements, national tourism brand and marketing efforts in other markets, is vital to holis-tic brand, destination, and tourism economy growth and development.

Incredible India


38>> 39>>

Inspiration The inspiration for RailYatri.in actu-ally came while undertaking a train journey. I wondered why there was no way to track trains when an 8X10 inch courier could be tracked so eas-ily. Then again, there was the fact that trains are a key artery of our transport network comprising almost 80% of the travel segment. It was surprising that the needs of train passengers have remained largely unaddressed so far. The sheer scale of railways presented a huge opportunity for us.

On a more personal note, we all have been travelling by trains throughout our lives. We had started out with a simple mission to answer – ‘Where is my train?” Today, that question has led us to an entire gamut of exciting new opportunities. Initial hurdlesOur challenges were no different from first time entrepreneurs. Howev-er the fact that we were treading on a completely unfamiliar territory added to the complexity. Indian Railways generates mammoth amounts of data every day. Crunching such huge

data to draw information relevant to passenger needs was a big task.

We had to focus on our R&D as well as technology to ensure that we were developing the right products and solutions. We had to adopt a hands-on approach where we spent quality time understanding how railways op-erated. FundingAt this stage we are evaluating and analysing different growth opportuni-ties and we will continue evaluating further fund raising depending on the growth factors. Yes, we did raise funds in the past. USP Our most distinctive factor is that we are the pioneers in this domain. Train passengers today can access cus-tomised information in various ways. We have brought forth specific micro-sites dedicated to events of high in-terest such as Kumbh, Fog etc. We also introduced visual representa-tion of train running information on Google maps through RailRadar.

Our marketing strategies and promo-tional activities centre on the ultimate customer i.e., the train passenger. We believe in building conversations with customers that would be mutu-ally beneficial. The idea is not only to inform about our latest initiatives but also understand passenger needs in greater depth.

Social media has been a great ena-bler in this direction. We have a very active community of over 110,000 people on Facebook and an active presence on Twitter as well. Our aim is to reach out to passengers across a variety of platforms.

What is encouraging is that the feed-back we have received from our on-line community has helped us design better and more targeted solutions. PlansWe definitely look forward to explor-ing fresh opportunities beyond our current set of digital offerings. We are deliberating on some proposals and will be able to share details post due diligence.

Present market We feel that we entered the market at the right time when it was ready for products like ours. With the onset of the internet revolution, the entire product delivery and consumption model has undergone a change. Businesses have become customer driven and it is possible to design and develop customised solutions.

People are now looking for products that meet their specific requirements in the fastest manner possible. The timing is absolutely apt for business-es that are willing to take calculated risks, experiment and adapt to cus-tomer needs.

TrendsTrain travel in India has largely been a social experience, undertaken with friends and family. At RailYatri.in, we have always appreciated the social na-ture of train journeys and have focused our efforts in this direction. We are now witnessing a growing trend where people are actively engaging online re-garding their travel experience. The so-cial nature of travel has now become a major online feature as well. ChallengesThe challenges for us were similar to those faced by entrepreneurs in gen-eral. However, there was always a greater level of uncertainty as we were treading on a completely uncharted territory with no precedence to rely on.

Conceptualising and executing a so-lution that targets around 80% of In-dia’s travel base involves dealing with huge numbers. The key for us was to ensure that we make smart decisions in areas such as product manage-ment, R&D etc.

Working in close collaboration with the Indian Railways to understand their operations, was a major learn-ing experience for us. In order to en-sure an in-depth understanding of the space, we continue to invest our time and energies in gaining greater knowledge of the various operations of railways. This kind of hands-on approach en-sures that we are able to create the right kind of products to facilitate smarter train travel.

RaILyaTRI.In keePS TRaInS on ‘TRaCk’ Manish Rathi, Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Product Officer, RailYatri.in, talks about the need for and the scope of

tracking trains in India’s vast rail network.

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Manish RathiRailYatri.in

Train travel in India has largely been a social experience, undertaken with friends and family. We are now witnessing a growing trend where people are actively engaging online regard-ing their travel experience. The social nature of travel has now become a major online feature as well.

online Travel


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Beginning There was always a necessity for structured cab rental industry in In-dia. When Carzonrent started, the motivation was to provide a comfort-able and safe travel to the customers. With roads getting better and technol-ogy becoming navigation-friendly, we realized it was high time we launched self-drive facility in India, a popular trend in the Western countries.

More so, the Indian traveler is evolv-ing and is going to tour more and spend more. A professional service that gives them the freedom to travel their own way is the need of the hour.

Potential The taste of travel has changed a lot in these 15 years and is still changing. Now, people love to explore places by themselves and India has a plethora of destinations that are yet to be dis-covered. In this era of iphone and smart phones the youngsters (25-35) have started looking for economical self-drive options to drive out. Besides leisure group, Small Medium Entrepreneurs also do a lot of busi-ness travel. They find it relevant to hire cab with self-drive option rather going for chauffeur. Currently we are growing at a steady 18% growth rate, present in 35 cities, nine major air-ports and 20 hotels and plan to ex-pand to 100 cities in the next three years. We are well funded.

Growth rate/plans We have launched outstation, inter-national tie-up with 150 countries and self-drive facility across India. In the last two years, we have grown at

18% and are expecting to grow 25% .

Marketing strategies The trust of customers and the quali-ty service assurance guarantee is our USP. We, till date, have 30 lakhs sat-isfied customers annually; 20,000 customers travel daily with our brand.100% service assurance is a recent initiative we have taken for EasyCabs.

Future offeringsExperts see two categories of Indian travellers growing — at the top end and the middle/lower middle — as incomes rise. This isn’t true just for India but Asia Pacific at large.

From around 700 million people in the middle class in 2011, the num-ber is set to touch 2.1 billion by 2030, signalling the rise of what is called the consuming class (annual household income of $5,000 plus).

The biggest chunk of this growth will come from China and India. Indian travel industry, car rental in specific, has a huge potential for expansion.

Only 12% is with organized players. There is a huge gap between de-mand and supply of travel service for customers. Tier I and II cities have enormous potential. In this coming financial year we will focus on self-drive and Outstation across India.

Maturity of market The market is on the phase of con-solidation and people are looking for quality service than the neighbour-hood cab rental service provider, of-fering dilapidated cabs.

Latest trends India’s middle class will grow from the present 5% to 50% by 2030. Similarly, HNIs are expected to grow

six fold by 2030 — from around 0.2 million in 2011 to over 1.2 million by 2030. This segment will fuel growth at the luxury end of the market.The upcoming trends in this segment is the corporates and businessmen are frequently traveling with cab rent-al companies as the companies find it economical and a way for cost cut-ting in travel budgets.

ChallengesBased on a survey, only 62% of peo-ple are aware about the availability of self-drive service in India. However, 90% said, given a chance they would love to experience this service.

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Rajiv VijCEO & MD, Carzonrent (I) LTD

In this era of smart phones, youngsters (25-35) are looking for economical self-drive options to drive out. Theemerging travel consumer who is more into discovery and adventure.

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new-age TRaVeLLeRS PRefeR SeLf-DRIVe CaRS Rajiv Vij, CEO & MD, Carzonrent (I) LTD, is betting big on the potential of self-drive car service in India what

with the emergence of an assertive new-age traveller.

Self-Drive Cars


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About the Travelista festivalTravelista is the first travel film, pho-tography and culture festival of India and aims to bring an eclectic mix of travel films, photography, cultural products, handicrafts, innovative art and upcoming designers and travel entrepreneurs under one roof. Trave-lista is a person who loves travel, cul-ture, food, heritage, art and design

as travelling is never independent of these elements intrinsic to a culture or place. Our festival aims to serve as a platform to promote such elements in an exciting and unique way.

Being a travel filmmaker in the UK, I realised that travel filmmaking and travel photography are very popular especially amongst backpackers.

However, in India, very few people are aware of this genre and seldom doc-ument their tales and travel experi-ences on camera. So I always wanted to start something that encourages more people and filmmakers to pick up their camera and shoot every time they travel and break the precon-ceived notions one often has about a culture or destination!

The response to the first edition of the festival was amazing. We re-

ceived over 200 films from all round the world and a huge number of travel photographs from India. Lonely Planet’s photographers Pete Sea-ward conducted an exclusive travel photography workshop for our festival audience at the festival. Besides, we had talented designers, artisans and brands who showcased their unique products at the festival!

Highlights of the second editionThe festival was an absolute delight for travel junkies, culture vultures, art and shopping lovers! For this edition, India’s leading backpacking compa-ny, indianbackpacker.com’s Akshay Chhugani joined hands with Trave-lista who also organised some fun backpacking and travel games.

Nomadic film screenings under the moonlit sky, funky rickshaws, roadside carts selling cutting chai and popcorn,

a zillion shopping stalls and colourful art installations were some of the at-tractions of the Travelista festival.

Products exhibited at the festival were a unique representation of Indi-an and international culture; ranging from Lucknowi saree with a Marilyn Monroe portrait, travel-themed van-ity boxes, kitsch T-shirts, Bollywood cushion covers, Indian jewellery, Pa-kistani apparels, French and Ikkat scarfs, bags, clutches and more.

The festival showcased winning en-tries of the Travel Photography Festi-val, submitted by many backpackers, professional and amateur photogra-phers. The Travel Wall of Fame had photographs of people posing in vari-ous destinations and a fun ‘Travelista Tourist Studio’ where one could pose and get his/her picture clicked with their favourite world wonder.

TRaVeL IS neVeR InDePenDenT of CuLTuReAkshuna Bakshi, Founder, Travelista, talks about the second edition of the travel festival, that took place in Dilli

Haat INA recently.

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Travel events

Mandate as the new KTM PresidentThe Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) is the single largest body representing the tourism sector in Kerala. The organisa-tion functions on the democratic prin-ciple that the KTM is ‘by the members and for the members’. My first priority, therefore, is to protect the interests of members by strengthening the busi-ness network to Kerala. I will further

build on the rapport with the Kerala Government and Kerala Tourism to bring together the business fraternity and entrepreneurs behind the tourism products and services of Kerala.

I also aim to assist the members in presenting the problems and issues concerning the tourism trade, to the appropriate government authorities or other agencies, and obtain the redres-sal of such grievances. I will reach out to the members and accept their sug-gestions to take KTM to the next level.

KTM’s role in augmenting Kerala’s tourism potentialKerala has grown to become a global brand in tourism today. To the dis-cerning traveller, the state is a wide repertoire of possibilities for enhanc-ing one’s experience. In that respect, the tourism potential of the state is huge. Therefore, we need to invite and organise study tours of foreign

travel agents, tourism promotion agencies and travel writers to dis-seminate information on the range of possibilities the state can offer.

Kerala is the only state in the country where a long and sustained public-private partnership in the tourism sector has yielded rich dividends, and opened up a plethora of opportuni-ties for further development. We are planning several steps to strengthen this partnership. There will be train-ing programmes for the members of the industry in the coming months.

We also want to plan the future by involving students of travel and tour-ism in the state’s tourism develop-ment project, through various training programmes. We will conduct travel marts, roadshows, seminars, work-shops, exhibitions, study tours and vis-its to tell the world more about Kerala, besides brochures and ads.

Plans for Kerala Travel Mart 2014Preparations for KTM 2014 have al-ready begun and the event will be much bigger than the previous edition. The different committees for the organi-sational functioning have been formed well ahead of time towards achieving that goal. In 2014, we want to ensure participation from the maximum num-ber of countries. KTM will take the initia-tive to reach out to new markets and to also source quality buyers to visit Kerala in the coming years, besides organising roadshows in various countries with the support of Kerala Tourism.

Other highlights of KTMKTM’s strength is reflected in the in-creasing participation of Sellers and Buyers. An important initiative will be in social responsibility. We will reach out to the tourism locations and edu-cate the industry about their role in empowering the local community.

keRaLa TRaVeL MaRT To STeP uP PPP MoDeLAbraham George, the newly elected President of Kerala Travel Mart, shares his plans in his new undertaking,

among other initiatives for the forthcoming edition.

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42>>Travel events

The Annual Convention of Indian Association of Tour Operators

held at Le Meridien, Kochi, sought ways to tide over the many crises and dilemmas faced by the Indian travel trade.

Themed “Indian Tourism: Innovations and Partnerships,” the convention gave a platform for the stakeholders to discuss the challenges, potentials, technological advancements and the future of the industry.

Kerala CM Oommen Chandy inaugu-rated the convention in the presence of Union Consumer Affairs Minister of State Prof. K.V. Thomas, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, K.C. VENUGO-PAL, Kerala Tourism Minister P. Anil Kumar, Additional Director General (Tourism) Usha Sharma, KTDC Chair-man Vijayan Thomas, Kerala Secre-tary Tourism Suman Billa, etc.

In his welcomes address, IATO Chair-man Arun Anand mentioned about value additions like IATO Run for Re-sponsible Tourism, Auction wall to raise funds for charity, etc.

In the presidential address, IATO President Subhash Goyal talked

about the reasons for adopting “Indi-an Tourism “Innovations and Partner-ships” as the convention theme and the bottlenecks that are impacting the tourism industry.

According to him, Indian tourism needs special efforts to have visa relaxation, improved infrastructure, look for new markets like Brazil and Africa etc. Air connectivity and budg-et hotels are the need of the hour to make India competitive.

He said that only tourism can solve India’s problems of Foreign Exchange Balance of Payment, Current Account Deficit (CAD), employment and pov-erty eradication.

He appealed to the government to exempt the industry from service tax. “In inbound tourism 1000 dollars we earn, 99% remain in the country. It generates millions of jobs in rural, backward and remote areas, giving fillip to local handicraft, cuisine, art and culture. No other industry gives the government and the country a better return on investment. So in order to turn this tide we have to give better incentives to inbound tourism than we give to physical exports by

exempting us from Service Tax and seriously considering for a 5 year tax holiday on Income Tax like was given to the Software industry, and this will put inbound tourism on a real fast track. It will make India a competitive destination, thus increasing the flow

of tourist into the country,” he said. He further said that there should be no hurdles in the flow of inbound tourists to India. The trade has been facing visa problems for their groups and FITs for which IATO has been de-manding a hassle-free visa on arrival

IaTo ConVenTIon: SeekIng wayS To ReDefIne THe InDuSTRy

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and E-visas. If this is done tourism ar-rivals to India will grow by at least 20-40%.in the next two years, said Goyal.Another opportunity, he said, is to turn the tide and earn millions of dol-lars through cruise tourism, which is on the rise. There are many world-class cruise liners that are touching our shores now.

“They carry from 1000 to 3000 thou-sand passengers on board and when they dock we have so many tourists on our land. But unfortunately we are slow in turning these events into op-portunity as most of these guests shy away from taking shore excursions on our land. The hassles are: very high port charges, delays at immigration,

etc. The cruise liners have 8 to 9 hours at the port and 3-4 hours are spent in immigration clearance only. Further the docking area is not ap-pealing. There are no air-conditioned lounge facilities or international standards. Just like we are building world-class airports we should build world class cruise terminals on all our major seaports,” he added.

He also stressed the need for keep-ing hygiene across all tourist destina-tions, especially those heritage sites and the need for improving infra-structure.

He lamented that today travel agents and tour operators have

become endangered species. “Air-lines have stopped giving us com-missions. Hoteliers get benefit in the name of tourism but when we want to diversify into development of tourism infrastructure, the funds are available to us at 12 to 14% in-terest whereas exporters get funds at 4 to 5%. We want the funds to be available to us at par with the ex-porters so that we are able create more diversified infrastructure and be part of further growth of tourism to our country.”

Goyal said that IATO has made sin-cere efforts in uniting the industry and joined a Federation of Associa-tions of Indian Tourism and Hospital-

ity, FAITH. “We do not want Airlines and Hoteliers to undercut us on their websites. We want airlines to protect our commission,” he concluded.

A.P. Anil Kumar talked about state government’s positive marketing strategies which have been drawn up to boost international tourist arrivals in Kerala and strong partnerships de-veloped with all stakeholders.

KTDC Chairman Vijayan Thomas also addressed the delegates and talked about the diversification of tourism products in Kerala and marketing strategies. Usha Shar-ma, Add. Director General Tourism, talked about the new thrust areas in Indian tourism focusing on safety, cleanliness, infrastructure develop-ment & global publicity and how the ministry has formed partnerships with stakeholders & how IATO is in-volved in decision making process at every level.

E.M. Najeeb, Chapter Chairman, IATO and President Confederation of Kerala Tourism Industry, was also honoured for his efficient service to have constant coordination with state government and trade to make this event a big success. The award was given by Chief Minister. The inaugural event was followed by a cultural pro-gramme on Kerala’s rich heritage.

Travel events


44>>wTM London 2013

Expectations from the 2013 editionWTM 2013 will be the biggest and best yet with two great new initiatives taking place. Firstly, the Travel Tech Show at WTM is launched as a travel technol-ogy focused event alongside WTM and A Taste of ILTM at WTM will increase the amount of luxury business taking place on the exhibition floor.

Benefit of event on the regionWTM 2012 will generate a massive 166,738m INR (£1.8bn) in business deals for all exhibitors, in contracts signed at the event or generated from WTM 2012 before WTM 2013, with the industry’s senior buyers from WTM Buyers’ Club. WTM 2013 is poised to facilitate even more busi-ness.

Main buyers and new entrants We are welcoming over 200 new exhibitors to WTM this year, with in-creases in areas as the Middle East, Asia and Travel Technology.

We also look forward to seeing the likes of the Ghana Tourist Board, Gre-nada Board of Tourism, Planet Hol-lywood and Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority back at WTM as returning exhibitors.

Travel Technology exhibitors and Lux-ury brands will continue to be a big focus for us to ensure that the new areas of WTM- The Travel Tech Show at WTM and A Taste of ILTM at WTM- are a great success. India welcomed 12 new exhibitors

last year including: Brys Hotels, In-bound Tour Operator Council (ITOC) - West Bengal, hotel company ITC Lim-ited and Odisha Tourism. WTM 2013 will host many more new exhibitors including two regional tourist boards Andhra Pradesh State Tourism and Maharashtra Tourism Development.

Highlights of this year’s editionWe have seen a great interest in the luxury sector at WTM over the years, even with our sister event ILTM Cannes following a month later. A Taste of ILTM at WTM is solely for UK luxury travel buyers and key decision makers.

I am delighted with the response WTM has had to the first A Taste of

ILTM at WTM. The two day series of pre-matched pre-arranged appoint-ments with luxury UK buyers brings a dedicated luxury focus to WTM for the first time. Bringing new products to the event floor and new buyers, improving the overall offering of WTM for all participants.

WTM 2013 will include a full events programme consisting of some great sessions from the popular World Re-sponsible Tourism Day, Technology and Social Media programme, Avia-tion and Hotels.

Significance of travel technology on the agenda The Travel Tech Show at WTM has been created following the rapid growth of the Travel Technology re-gion at WTM, which has grown 40% and 30% respectively over the past two years. The event will sit alongside World Travel Market for the full four days (Monday 4 – Thursday 7 Novem-ber).

We have had a great response from the industry looking to exhibit at the first The Travel Tech Show at WTM. The high level of interest justifies WTM’s decision to create The Travel Tech Show at WTM as a ‘show within a show’ concept and commit dedicat-ed resource to an area of the travel and tourism industry which is growing in importance. all the new exhibitors

wTM LonDon 2013: new IDeaS, oPPoRTunITIeS & MoRe BuSIneSS

VW BUREAUSimon PressExhibition Director, WTM

Indian exhibitors can expect to conduct a great deal of business at WTM 2013. WTM 2012 will generate over 22,676m INR (£253m) for exhibitors from Asia/ Pacific/ Indian Ocean and the India regions. WTM 2013 will host Andhra Pradesh State Tourism and Maharash-tra Tourism Development.

Simon Press, EXhibition Director, WTM, talks about the highlights of this year’s edition, expectations from the Travel Tech Show, a Taste of ILTM at WTM, new markets, Indian participants and responsible tourism.


44>> 45>> wTM London 2013

wTM LonDon 2013: new IDeaS, oPPoRTunITIeS & MoRe BuSIneSS

BRICs’ grand shopping tour of Europe

The Global Trends Report 2012 predicted that inbound tourism from BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) would experience in-credible growth in Europe. Newly released data by Euromonitor Inter-national confirmed this prediction. Croatia experienced 93% growth in arrivals from China and 40% from Brazil in 2012. Cyprus recorded 42% growth in arrivals from Russia, while arrivals from India to the Nether-lands increased by 18%. European governments are slowly realising the importance of attracting more tourists from the BRIC countries.

For example, the UK Home Office recently announced plans to intro-duce a guidance leaflet in Mandarin and a debate has started about the possibility of easing the visa processing system.

Hotels are also looking at the BRIC countries to boost their revenues. According to a recent survey by Hotels.com, about a quarter of hotel-iers offered cultural awareness training to staff. As predicted by the Global Trends Report 2012, not only travel players but also retailers are benefiting from BRIC arrivals. For example, spending by tourists at retail outlets within Heathrow Airport from the BRIC countries in-creased by 18% in 2012.

to the event and I am delighted to welcome thank the many that have increased their space for this year’s event. I anticipate the event will be sold out in its first year.

A number of previous exhibitors have doubled their stand space for the Travel Tech Show at WTM, including online travel agent Hotwire, website company Digital Trip and online distri-bution company SiteMinder. We also

have a great Travel Technology event programme in place

Focus in responsible tourismWorld Travel Market’s Responsible Tourism programme, which includes World Responsible Tourism Day on Wednesday 6 November 2013, has three key themes for this year’s event.

The three key themes for the pro-

gramme, which includes the world’s biggest responsible tourism event World Responsible Tourism Day, are Water Disability, and Responsible Volunteering

WTM long championed the global is-sue of water consumption through its official charity Just a Drop. Further-more, 2013 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Water Cooperation.

World Responsible Tourism Day has grown to be the world’s biggest re-sponsible tourism event and this year we will focus on water, disability and responsible volunteering.

The overall Responsible Tourism pro-gramme stretches across three days of the event from 05 – 07 November offering unrivalled insight, debate and opinion into the growing impor-tance of sustainable tourism.

UNWTO & WTM Ministers’ Summit: How to bridge the gap between tourism and aviation policies

The 2013 edition of the UNWTO/WTM Ministers’ Summit will take place on 05 November, 2013. It will address issues on bridging the gap between air trans-port and tourism policies; Opportunities and challenges facing air transport development – infrastructure, taxes and levies, visa facilitation and regulation and Success factors and remaining obstacles.

The speakers include Dr. Mariano Recalde, President, Aerolíneas Argentinas; Carlos Enrique Meyer, Minister of Tourism, Argentina; Beverly Nicholson-Doty, Commissioner of Tourism, United States Virgin Islands, Chairman of the Carib-bean Tourism Organization and Rafael Schvartzman, Regional Vice President – Europe International Air Transport Association(IATA).Charles Hodson, CNN International will be the moderator.

In 2012, one billion international tourists travelled the world, generating over US$1.3 trillion dollars in export earnings. Over half these tourists arrived at their destination by air, with much higher proportions in long-haul destina-tions, particularly landlocked and island developing countries. The extraordi-nary growth of international tourism over the last decades – from 25 million tourists in 1950 to one billion in 2012 – is as much due to advances in air transport as to the rise of the middle class, the growing wealth in industrial-ized and emerging countries and the forces of globalization.

Simon Press, EXhibition Director, WTM, talks about the highlights of this year’s edition, expectations from the Travel Tech Show, a Taste of ILTM at WTM, new markets, Indian participants and responsible tourism.


46>> 46>>festival watch

Great American Beer Festival Colorado, USA

10-12 October, 2013

Colorado, USA calls all beer lovers this October to indulge in a massive beer carnival. The Great American beer Festival, a New World Oktoberfest will gather representa-

tives from the nation’s best breweries to tap over 1,600 different kinds of beer with bold flavors and imaginative names. Live music, people in crazy costumes drinking beer, and beer-cooking demonstrations are the main highlights of this festival. The three day long premium festival is one of the best beer fests in the world.

Pema Gatshel TshechuBhutan

09-12 November, 2013

Pema Gatshel Dzongkhag in Eastern Bhutan celebrates the annual Tsechu over a three-day period, since the construction of the dzong in the early 1980’s. Many mask dances

or Cham, that are believed to confer blessings upon the spectators and teach them the ways of the Buddhist dharma, are performed during the festival. Cham are also believed to provide protection from misfortune and exorcise evil influences. It is an annual social gathering where people from all walks of life get together to celebrate and contemplate religion. People often travel great distances to be a part of the Tsehchu. The entire community rejoices together, dressed in their finest clothing whilst enjoying the company of friends and family.

20th Gwangju World Kimchi Culture Festival, Korea

05-09 October, 2013

Gwangju Kimchi Festival celebrates what could be called Korea’s national food, Kimchi. When vegetables, which couldn’t be preserved, were pickled in salt or

mixed with sauces or spices, the resultant new tastes and aromas and storage came to be called as Kimchi. Foreigners learn to make Kimchi and can take home souvenirs. Exhibitions, musical acts, cooking competitions, cabbage harvesting happen during this period. In addition, exhibitions and other competitions are held during the festival.

DasaraMysore, Karnataka

14 October, 2013

Built in Indo-Saracenic style, the Mysore Palace celebrates Dasara, a 10-day festival with Vijay-adashami being the last day. During this time, the festivities are an elaborate affair; the main attraction is the palace being illuminated all 10 days with nearly one lakh bulbs in the evening. Mysore’s most recent attraction is the Son-et-Lumiere, a one of a kind Sound and Light Show held in the vicinity of the palace, showcasing 50 minutes of Mysore history and culture in Kan-nada, English and Hindi. On Vijayadashami, there is a Dasara elephant procession called the Jumboo Savari takes place, accompanied by colourful tableaux, music, dance and ends with a torchlight parade.

Voyager’s World > June 2013

Festivals o f the world


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Dylan Thomas Festival 201327 October-09 November 2013

The 16th annual Dylan Thomas Festival returns to Swansea, Wales with highlights including the launch of a new centenary commission from Gillian Clarke and a day packed with talks, events,

special guests, workshops and Daleks to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. The Dylan Thom-as Centre presents an evening based on the fantastically popular Danish drama, The Killing, featur-ing David Hewson and Emma Kennedy. The Festival and Bluestocking Lounge join forces to present ‘Wordy Shapes of Women’, a night where burlesque collides with Dylan Thomas’ poetry, preceded by a free creative writing workshop.

100 Miles of Lights,Virginia, USA

15 November, 2013 - 01 January 2014

Come share the warmth of the holiday season and experience millions of lights and hun-dreds of events from Virginia’s capital city to the Atlantic Ocean. The region will glitter and

glow, sparkle and shine with lights, lights and more lights. The state’s legendary 100 Miles of Lights connects world-class illuminations across six cities – Richmond, Williamsburg, Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk and Virginia Beach. The drive through light displays and special events, including illuminated parades, magical lighted drives and sparkling city skylines, makes Virginia’s 100 Miles of Lights an unforget-table experience for all ages.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, New York, USA

28 November 2013

A Thanksgiving institution for 85 years, this parade is one of the most famous holiday events in the world. This amazing and iconic spectacle of celebrities, Broadway performers, enormous balloon

creatures and the first Santa appearance of the season can be witnessed in person along the route. The procession heads down Central Park West from 77th Street and travels east along Central Park South to Sixth Avenue, then proceeds south from West 59th Street to West 34th Street, ending in front of the Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square.

Seafood Fiesta, GaliciaSpain

04-13 October, 2013

In October, O’Grove, on the coast of Galicia, celebrates its Fiesta in Honour of Seafood. During the celebrations, fish and shellfish go on sale at special prices, prepared and served by town

locals. The excellent regional produce attracts thousands of people every year, making this event a point of reference, and earning O’Grove its nickname of ‘seafood paradise’. There is also music, traditional dance, competitions and sporting events, as well as seminars and exhibitions.

festival watch

Festivals o f the world


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Objective behind the workshopWe wanted to have an engagement

process with travel agents to educate them on the products that we have.

Hence, we embarked on a sales mis-sion with the travel agents and tour

operators of Bangalore to work close-ly with them.

Themed yearsEvery year, we have themes such as the Year of Food and Drink, Year of Natural Scotland this year and so on. 2014 will be the Year of Home-coming. We come up with different themes from time to time in order to tell the consumers about the dif-ferent interests that Scotland offers, be it the landscapes, highlands, wildlife, nature, festivals or food. So far, we have received very good response from consumers as well as the industry for these themed travels. The travel agents, tour op-

Objective of this year’s workshopWe are trying to promote ourselves in the Indian market, despite budget constraints. There are several inter-actions between Spanish and Indian companies to boost partneship. This year, we had 12 companeis, three tourism boards here to penetrate fur-ther in South India.

Our findings indicate that South India travels more to Europe. The Mumbai Consulate has the maximum visa ap-

plications from South and West India, Mumbai and Bangalore in particular. Though Bangalore is smaller in terms of population, we wanted to reach out to the travel agents and tour operators.

New destinationsSpain is relatively a new destination for the Indian market. Having said that, this year we are promoting Cata-lonia, Barcelona, Costa del Sol, as welll as World Heritage cities, historic downtowns and Ibiza.

For the Indian marketSpain is a year-round destination and Emirates, Qatar Airways and Lufthansa serve flights to our country. We are also trying to tap Incentive groups in India. We allow master chefs from these groups in the kitchen to help cook In-dian dishes for the members.

The holiday season in India, April and May, is a low-season in Spain then. The peak season would be from mid-June to October. 15% of our visitors

are Incentive category; 20% comprise business trips and those attending congresses, exhibitions and training programmes and 1% is made up of FIT and weddings. A big wedding from Del-hi is expected to take place at Canary Island this month. It may be mentioned that both Delhi and Canary Island are located on the same latitude.

Sample itinerary for a first-time travellerI would recommend at least seven days for someone who is visiting Spain for the first time. Incentive groups come for short trips, with just one city on their itinerary. We would suggest they visit at least two cities during their visit, like Madrid-Barce-lona, Madrid-Andalucia or Madrid-Ibiza. Else, I would rather they come for a complete standalone holiday in Spain, instead of a combined one in France, Italy and just hopping over in one city in Spain, which does not make sense.

Spain Tourism recently concluded a three-city workshop in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Voyager’s World met

Arturo Ortiz Arduan, Tourism Counselor, Spain Tourism for a quick one-on-one on this year’s focus and beyond.

India outbound

PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

Arturo Ortiz ArduanSpain Tourism

South India travels more to Europe. The Mum-bai Consulate has the maximum visa appli-cations from South and West India, Mumbai and Bangalore in particular.

Vineet LalVisit Scotland

Our main arrivals are FIT visitors from India, who buy itineraries through travel agents and tour operators. As per International Pas-senger Survey, from 2010-2012, there were 20,000 visits from India and 503,000 bed nights and 19 million pounds of spend.

SPaIn TouRISM To TaP SouTH InDIa

SCoTLanD eMBRaCeS HoMeCoMIng THeMe foR 2014Vineet Lal – International Marketing Manager, Long Haul & Emerging Markets, Visit Scotland – talks to Voyag-

er’s World about its recent workshop organized for the travel trade in Bangalore and its forthcoming itineraries

for next year, among other things.


48>> 49>>

MUMBAI-AHMEDABAD-DELHIFEBRUARY 2014

MUMBAI-KOLKATA-CHENNAIHYDERABAD-DELHI

JANUARY 2014

# 245, Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560 071, IndiaPh: +91 - 80 - 4083 4100, Fax: + 91 - 80 - 4083 4101, [email protected], www.otrindia.comAhmedabad - Delhi - Hyderabad - Mumbai - Pune

erators and the transport authori-ties design itineraries around the theme.

Our statistics show that 40% of all the tourism spending goes for nature-based itineraries; 127 million pounds per annum was spent on wildlife itin-eraries. Walking tours are expected to contribute up to 22% of UK tour-ism’s revenue by 2015.

Our latest offer would be the John Muir Trail, a long distance trail, in honour of the Scottish naturalist. The trail is very close to Edinburgh and would be a coast-to-coast one at that. His life and legacy will be celebrated from April 14-22, 2014.

In June 2014, we have the Re-enact-ment of the Battle of Bannockburn and the re-opening of its visitor cen-tre. In May, we will celebrate our fa-mous Scot Whiskey. In September, we have the Forth Bridges Festival, marking the 50th anniversary of the Forth Road Bridge. We will make sure that the 2014 products are all related the theme of Homecoming. We are working closely with Visit Britain to give out our mes-sages.

Visas, accommodation…Although we have some control over the visa regime, we do not have a direct impact on it. So we will try to ensure that the travel agents and tour operators are best informed about the visa process. The Year of Homecoming is an opportunity for us to promote the whole of Scotland, the year-round.

There is a lot of advice on accommo-dation on our website www.visitscot-land.com and also on the Glasgow 2014 website www.glasgow2014.com. Our message is that ‘we are open for business’.

Relationship with the travel tradeOur relationship with the Indian travel trade has been very good thus far, the airlines included. The level of in-terest was huge and Scotland shares a long connection with India and we get a lot of enquiries for our country. We have a very innovative system of training and work to impart excellent product knowledge. When the travel agents know the market well and are better equipped about our products, it will be a direct economic benefit for them.

The first graduation ceremony took place in Delhi last year for our Scot-land agents and over 50 were facilitat-ed. The second graduation ceremony will take place in Mumbai next week.

India’s position among global marketsIndia is an important emerging mar-ket for us. Our other key source mar-kets would be the USA, Canada, Aus-tralia and New Zealand. The other emerging market would be China.Our main arrivals are FIT visitors from India, who buy itineraries through travel agents and tour oper-ators. Findings by the International Passenger Survey (IPS) show that from 2010-2012, there were 20,000 visits from India and 503,000 bed nights and 19 million pounds of spend.

In 2012 alone, there were 18,000 visits and 559,000 bed nights and a spending of 18 million pounds. In-

dian visitors are found to spend more than a general visitor.

Scotland also has a thriving Indian student population. So we are look-ing at expanding the VFR segment and also targeting the alumni so as to make them keep the Scot in their hearts always.

Sample itinerary for a first time travellerI would suggest that someone visiting Scotland for the first time stop at Ed-inburgh and Glasgow.

Edinburgh is a city known for castles and medieval architecture while Glas-gow is buzzing with art, shopping, fashion, culture, etc.

One can travel to the west to the Highlands, a generic term that we use to refer to our breathtaking landscapes.

For example, the regions of Ayr-shire and Arran in the south west of Glasgow boast of verdant hills and beaches; Mull, an island in Argyll has stunning wildlife and is one of the best places to spot rare sea ea-gles; the Isle of Iona that has spe-cial significance for Christianity; the uninhabited island of Staffa that is home to the Fingal’s Cave that has rocks formed from basalt; the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park and the Cairngorms National Park; Bannockburn; Aberdeen and the historic city of Stirling.

India outbound


50>>

uDaan: offeRIng unMaTCHeD VISa SeRVICeS

Services offered to the Indian marketUdaan, since its inception in 1992, has been providing visa facilitation services to travel agents, travel man-agement companies, corporate and individual traveller in India. Apart from visa facilitation, we also provide the following services – Legalization of documents for travel purpose, Meet & Assist services, passport as-sistance, FRRO services, OCI and PIO Assistance, travel insurance etc.

USP of Udaan in visa servicing Udaan is the only visa facilitation company with a pan-India presence. We have offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Gurgaon. We have separate teams for travel agents, travel management companies, corporate, MICE visas, individual traveller and so on. Each of our client is provided with a dedi-cated client manager.

We use the best of technology in the visa industry with comprehensive visa information, contact details/holi-day list of all embassys/consulates and outsourced visa centres, forms, formats, real time Online Tracking Wizard, status alerts at every stage of processing etc. All this is free of cost for all our registered users.

Versatility in adopting technologyEnvisioning the impact of technology in our lives, Udaan India was the first

company to launch its visa portal in 2000. This gave us a leading edge over all other visa facilitators and made Udaan India a distinguished leader in the travel industry. We have always been a trendsetter in the visa industry and with this innovation, we pioneered the online visa tracking system. In 2012, we launched the upgraded version of our website with a lot of new features.

Growth in the last two years and forecast for 2014Udaan has grown tremendously in the last two years with a lot of travel management companies, corporate and travel agents widening its hori-zon. We have offices in Delhi, Mum-bai, Bangalore and Chennai and have now set up two offices in Gurgaon and Kolkata. We plan to expand in other cities with more outlets.

Marketing and connecting with the Indian trade We have done a lot of smart cam-paigns through travel associations like TAAI, IAAI, SKAL etc. We have been sponsoring in conventions, conducting regular visa seminars for travel agents, travel management companies and corporates. We send e-mailers on visa updates to people in the travel fraternity, that is not lim-ited to our clients. We have tied up with magazines to publish the latest visa updates.

Upcoming plans for the Indian marketWe are looking forward to upgrade our visa portal www.udaanindia.com with new features like online tracking of Blue Dart courier, online invoices, SMS alerts, at every stage of applica-tion processing, separate section for MICE visa requirements etc.

Trends in visa processingA lot of new changes were introduced by some diplomatic missions. While a few countries made visa process-ing easier by introducing e-visa and increasing their presence in cities other than metros( like Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Puducherry etc.), few countries made things complex such as mandatory personal appearance for submission, biometric, accept-ance of limited applications, longer processing time to review the appli-cation and so on.

Through technology, we have been able to provide comprehensive visa requirements along with all the nec-essary visa application forms, photo specification, covering letter and in-vitation letter formats to our clients, that help them prepare all documen-tation as per the Embassy/ Consu-late checklist, thereby minimising processing time to review the appli-cation. Also, clients get auto status mails at every stage of application, thus saving time on follow ups.

Now, as more and more countries are

opting for online appointments, on-line submission of visa applications and even scanned supporting docu-ments, Udaan has a team of experi-enced and skilled manpower which provide best-in-class service and as-sistance.

Efforts to tackle cumbersome visa proceduresDifferent countries have different visa procedures which, at times, make things easier for the traveller and at times, they have to go through the process of submitting a lot of doc-uments as per Embassy/ Consulate requirements.

We regularly go to visa meetings with Embassies/Consulates and discuss the concerns of travellers. For exam-ple, sometimes, financial documents are required time and again even from a frequent traveller, wherein the Embassy/Consulate validates this as a condition, as they always want to know about the current financial position of the traveller, considering it might not be the same as when he travelled last time.

Regular changes take place in the visa industry, making it complex and we, as a visa facilitator, ensure that such changes are immediately shared with the travel fraternity through emails, visa updates on our portal and in magazines.

Problems and suggestions in visa processingAt present, Singapore has around 20 authorised agents in Delhi, who can do online Singapore visas. Given that a large number of people travel to Singapore for tourist and business purpose, the embassy should consid-er increasing the number of author-ised agents.

Then there are a lot of embassies / consulates who do not provide with the collection date which, at times, becomes very difficult for the travel-ler as all hotel bookings/ticket reser-vation are done prior to applying for visas.

Rajan Dua, Managing Director, Udaan India (P) Ltd, highlights the company’s use of technology in visa servicing,

while giving suggestions for better handling of applications.

VW BUREAU

Rajan DuaUdaan India (P) Ltd

Given the volume of travel, embassies can increase number of authorised agents. As many Indians make last minute travel plans, the embassy/consulate should look into providing Rush Hour / Express Processing of Visas like the recent UK Business Express Pro-gramme, to help travellers to a great extent.

India outbound


50>> 51>>

China is all set to tap the Indian market in a big way what with a host of campaigns in the Indian market. Li

Qianguo, Dy. Director China National Tourist Office, talks to Voyager’s World in this regard.

CHIna eMBaRkS on a HIgH-VoLTage CaMPaIgn In InDIa

India outbound

Where do you put India among all your source markets globally? How did you fare in the first half of 2013 in terms of tourist arrivals from India?India is an important emerging source market for China. For the first half of this year, the Indian arrivals to China increased more than 10%. It is very encouraging.

Give us statistics of Indian arrivals for the last three years and your forecast for 2014.The past three years could see contin-uous growth of Indian arrivals to China (www.cnta.gov.cn). China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is at-taching great importance to the Indian tourism market which is full of poten-tials. The tourism exchange & coop-eration between China and India have been increasingly boosted in recent years. From January to July, 2013, the total visits from India to China were 399400, increasing 13.77% over the same period of last year; the direct first-stop visits from mainland China to India were 85,000, increasing 11.3% over the same period of last year. For next year, we can also expect similar growth. Thus, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is attaching great importance to the Indian tour-ism market which is full of potentials.

What are the upcoming pro-grammes and plans with regard to

luring tourists from India? Any road-shows coming up in India?CNTO, New Delhi will do more events including travel fairs, seminars, FAM tours to further tap the India market. My favorite choices in the near future will include IITM, TTF/OTM, ITM, Tour-ism Fest 2013 (CII), etc. A new road show of China Tourism will come next year.

Relationship with the Indian travel tradeThe Indian travel trade is surely my first and frequently contacting part-ner. The travel agents and their asso-ciations are giving me generous sup-port. For the recently concluded road show of China Tourism in Bangalore and New Delhi, IATO (national), TAAI-Karnataka, SFTO-India extended great support to China Tourism.

What are the efforts to boost tourist inflow from India? Explain your plans to attract special segments like MICE, honeymooners, etc from India?This is beneficial to both countries. We need to steadfastly strengthen the people-to-people exchanges and understanding & friendship between the two peoples. Travel and tourism are connecting us closely.

New destinationsThe first city destinations are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou; we hope Xi’an,

VW BUREAU

The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) organized a road show of China tourism from 24-30 September, 2013 in Bangalore and New

Delhi. The road show highlighted the theme Beautiful China. The event was showcased along with Chinese delegates who were tourism officials, ex-ecutives and travel agents from different regions of China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Guangxi, Shaanxi,

The event focused on Discovering Beautiful China in Bangalore on 25 Sep-tember, China-India Cultural Extravaganza in New Delhi on 28 September, and China Tourism Public Promotion in Select Citywalk, New Delhi from 28-29 September, along with the Chinese cultural performers of Foot Juggling, Diabolo and Face-changing are from Chengdu Associated Theater of Per-forming Art.

CNTA also organized a road show last year in Mumbai and New Delhi. This

initiative of taping Indian tourist market and strengthening bilateral tour-ism exchange & cooperation won great support from the Chinese Embassy in India and Consulate-general in Mumbai as well as the Indian tourism fraternity.

All of these regions have rich tourism resources and are popular tourist des-tinations. The tourism exchange & cooperation between China and India have been increasingly boosted in recent years. From January to July, 2013, the total visits from India to China were 399400, increasing 13.77% over the same period of last year; the direct visits from mainland China to India were 85,000, increasing 11.3% over the same period of last year. This mo-mentum is very encouraging especially when we face the current global travel trends (the international arrivals increased only about 5% from Janu-ary to July, 2013). China and India are more closely connected with each other through travel & tourism.

CnTa oRganIzeS RoaD SHow In BangaLoRe, new DeLHI


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The Great Mount Resort-Coco La-goon located in Pollachi amid a

manmade lake and a swimming pool on the side of the palms restaurant, officially launched on 9 September 2013.

The resort features 32 hut-like cot-tages, comprising 20 Executive De-luxe Rooms with balconies; five Presi-dential Suites with a separate dining room a, a balcony and natural light bathing deck; the Royal Suite that consists of a living room, bedroom, with one bathroom having a Jacuzzi ; one Premier Garden Villa with a pri-vate garden, a bathroom with Jacuzzi in a sunlight bathing deck set up and one Emperor Pool Villa with a living and dining room, Jacuzzi in a sunlight bathing deck setup and a swimming pool. Other amenities in the rooms are smoke detector, digital safe, mini bar, free WiFi and doctor-on-call.

The resort also has a banquet hall with a capacity of 150 for meetings

and amphitheatre for other events . For dining, there is the Palm, a multi-cuisine restaurant and Blue Bay Cof-fee shop at the poolside. Some of the Kongu delicacies we tasted were Pol-lachi yeral masala, mutton kuzham-bu, Karimeen kuzhambhu, Pallipa-layam kozhi varuval, Nathakadaiyur nandu masala and Salavu kuzhambu.

One should not miss Vaidya Sutras- the Ayurvedic wellness spa with five treatment rooms with treatments like Mana Prasadanam for anxiety, insom-nia; Abhyanga; Pizhichil; Shirodhara; Sthaulya Chikitsa; Deha Sodhanakara Panchakarmam that has treatments as Vamana or medicine-induced Em-esis, Virechana or medicine induced Purgation; Anuvasanavasthi or medi-cated oil enema; Niroohavasti or medi-cated decoction enema and Nasya.

One could feel the tranquility of na-ture especially with the greenery and coconut grove around this resort. The beautiful lawns have wooden porch

swings, teak wood chairs and tables.You can also visit nearby attractions like Topslip, Subramania Swamy Thiru-koli, Parambikulam Tiger Reserve and Maasaniamman Thirukoli at Pollachi.

Great Mount Resort-Coco Lagoon is a marvellous place for one to take off from one’s your busy schedules. It makes for a short and yet a worth-while getaway.

HoSPITaLITy

What is the expected growth?The Great Mount Resort- Coco La-goon at Pollachi was officially opened

on September 9 2013. Since then, we have witnessed a positive note in our occupancy so far. We want to achieve 80% occupancy within a year by not leaving any stone unturned.

Pollachi has a lot of attractions to be showcased with activities such as cy-cling, bird watching, organic farm vis-its as well as trekking. Pollachi being a lesser known tourist destination, we look forward to promoting Pollachi as a tourist destination. Destination Pollachi has to be developed in spir-itual, wildlife, ecotourism and rural aspects.

Focus segmentsWedding tourism is a growing seg-ment and we are working with Mark 1 Decors to promote Great Mount Coco Lagoon as a wedding destination. Culinary tourism is being promoted through our Kongu cuisine among tourists. Wellness and medical tour-ism, along with yoga, can be promot-ed the year round. Vaidya Sutras at the resort offers authentic Ayurvedic treatments by Asthavaidyan Thaikkat-tu Mooss Vaidyaratnam from Trisshur. We want the local and international people to experience them. We are also focusing on MICE with team build-

ing and leadership activities. Though many movies are shot in Pollachi, Bol-lywood is yet to develop here. We are approaching corporates for leisure tourism, which is picking up as well.

Marketing plansWe are participating in WTM London, ITB Berlin and roadshow in Barce-lona. We are focusing on responsi-ble tourism with the locals and plan to educate those in Pollachi through activities, create business for all seg-ments, not only telling them about tourism but also make them feel of the same.

gReaT MounT ReSoRT – CoCo Lagoon: TRanquILITy of naTuRe!

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

gReaT MounT ReSoRT - CoCo Lagoon SayS PoLLaCHI PoLaaMa!

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Pollachi being a beautiful destination, Great Mount Resort- Coco Lagoon looks forward to be a key to the

hospitality industry with a great vision in a span of 10 years says T. Sethupati, Managing Director, Great Mount

Resort-Coco Lagoon


52>> 53>>

Trudy Rautio, President & CEO, Carlson Companies instituted

the ‘K.B. Kachru Scholarship by Carlson’ at the 75th anniversary cel-ebrations of the group in Stockholm, in appreciation of K.B. Kachru’s contributions to the company.

The objective of this merit based scholarship would be to provide vo-cational assistance to meritorious girl students by offering opportuni-ties of education in Hospitality at IHM, Pusa New Delhi and at the Institute for International Manage-ment & Technology (IIMT), Gur-

gaon. The scholarship entitles the awardees complete course fee for the entire duration of the course.

Before joining Calrson, Kachru was the Head of the Ashok Group of Hotels, he was on the Board of Di-rectors for Tourism Corporation of various states in India, Institute of Hotel Management, New Delhi. K.B. Kachru has been an Execu-tive Member of several associa-tions, including PATA India Chapter, American Society of Travel Agents of India, and Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India.

HoSPITaLITy

CaRLSon RezIDoR SeTS uP k.B. kaCHRu SCHoLaRSHIPK.B. Kachru, Chairman, South Asia, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, has added a new feather to his cap, with the

company founding a scholarship in his name for the girl child in the hospitality industry, while recognizing his

contributions to the company.

VW BUREAU


54>>HoSPITaLITy

Banyan Tree Phuket: Phuket offers fine beaches, turquoise seas and warm sun-ny weather. Discover the romance and beauty of this island with Banyan Tree Phuket. This is a destination that showcases the island’s extraordinary beauty in a setting of award-winning architecture, built in harmony with nature.

Banyan Tree Samui: Banyan Tree Samui, overlooking the scenic Lamai Bay, is nestled in a series of cascading terraces on a private hill cove in the south-eastern coast of Koh Samui. Banyan Tree Samui combines the best elements of a tropical getaway with seclusion and privacy synonymous with Banyan Tree. Retreat from the bustle of the outside world into a secluded haven where your days pass in a gentle flow of relaxation. Be serenaded to sleep by the deep blue swells of the Gulf of Thailand and cool sea breezes.

Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru: At the Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru in Maldives, experience a sense of enchantment and romance as you spend the day trailing between sun, sand, sea and sala. Surrounded by turquoise waters, Vabbinfaru has only 48 villas sprinkled across the lush green garden of coconut trees and indigenous blooms. Enjoy the best of the Maldives on land and in the water as Banyan Tree Vabbin-faru offers up a melding of both worlds.

Banyan Tree Ungasan, Bali: With unrivalled panoramic views of the Indian Ocean, Banyan Tree Ungasan, Bali presents the ideal Bali experience for the worldly trav-eller. With pure white beaches, perfect blue waters and golden sunshine, Banyan Tree Ungasan and close to the famous Uluwatu Temple, the resort offers the high-est level of comfort and privacy synonymous with the Banyan Tree brand.

Banyan Tree Macau: Take in breathtaking views of Macau’s skyline in an atmos-phere of peace and serenity that Banyan Tree is famed for. The first high-rise urban resort in Macau features private indoor relaxation pools in all suites and resort villas complete with their own gardens and personal swimming pools, Banyan Tree will change the way you imagined high-rise living. In this instance, seeing is truly believing.

Banyan Tree Al Wadi: Amid stretches of desert sand in tranquil Wadi Khadeja, an oasis of peace awaits at Banyan Tree Al Wadi, a sanctuary surrounded by the evergreen ghaf tree, a luxury desert resort in the UAE with all-pool villas. Experi-ence magical Arabian nights and the romance of living like the nomads of yore, complete with Asian-inspired hydrotherapy spa facilities, nature reserve, and pri-vate beach at Banyan Tree Ras Al Khaimah Beach. (Advertorial)

Banyan Tree Al Wadi

Banyan Tree Phuket

Banyan Tree Ungasan, Bali

Banyan Tree Macau

Banyan Tree Samui

Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru

Banyan TRee HoTeLS & ReSoRTS: exoTIC SojouRnS foR MInD, BoDy anD SouL


54>> 55>> HoSPITaLITy

Angsana Ihuru: Angsana Ihuru brings out the romantic in you. Our resort, located on the Ihuru island in North Malé Atoll, is 20 minutes by speedboat from Malé. Enjoy the surreal view of miles and miles of turquoise waters. Venture into the ocean and watch dazzling marine life. Take a break from civilisation and live on an uninhabited island for the day. Wake up to a sensory experience, every day at Angsana Ihuru.

Angsana Velavaru: At Angsana Velavaru, you will wake up to the adventures of a tropical island. Angsana Velavaru brings out the intrepid traveller in you. Our resort is located in a picturesque lagoon in the pristine South Nilandhe Atoll. Mix romance with adventure between deserted islands and a house reef.

Angsana Balaclava Mauritius: Angsana Balaclava Mauritius is an oasis of re-laxation and privacy designed ideally for couples and honeymooners. Nestled in the secluded area of Turtle Bay, Angsana Balaclava Mauritius offers a hideaway ideal for travellers looking for privacy and relaxation.

Angsana Bintan: Angsana Bintan, located on Bintan island (Negeri Segantang Lada) in the Riau Archipelago of Indonesia, will delight the nature lover in you.

Go on the Bintan Nature Walk and Tree Walk as sea breeze rustles your hair. After your excursion, you have decisions to make – a session at the Angsana Spa, leisurely reading at your private sundeck, or a romantic dinner at our res-taurants.

Angsana Laguna Phuket: Angsana Laguna Phuket is located in scenic Bang Tao Bay, Phuket’s most coveted resort address. Just 20 minutes from bustling Phuket Town and the Phuket International Airport, lies the contemporary beach-front resort with unrivalled access to the emerald waters of the Andaman Sea.Angsana Laguna Phuket features vibrant and stylish rooms and facilities de-signed for the dynamic cosmopolitan traveller.

Angsana Lang Co: Set beachfront on warm sands with a backdrop of the tower-ing Truong Son (Annamite) Mountain Range, Angsana Lang Co is the one of the region’s newest five-star resorts. A part of the 280-hectare integrated resort of Laguna Lang Co, this modern retreat features brilliant scenes of unspoiled natural beauty and is in close proximity to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Com-plex of Hue Monuments, Hoi an Ancient Town and the Cham Kingdom Sanctuaries at My Son. (Advertorial)

Angsana Balaclava Mauritius

Angsana Ihuru

Angsana Bintan

Angsana Laguna Phuket

Angsana Lang Co Angsana Velavaru

angSana HoTeLS & ReSoRTS: ReLaxIng geTawayS In THe LaP of naTuRe


56>>Su

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No 245 Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560071Phone: 080- 4083 4100 [email protected] www.voyagersworld.in

Happenings

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) recently organised a “Luxury” FAM trip for travel agents from India.

This 12-day trip had the itinerary spread over Alberta, British Colum-bia and the Yukon. The most amazing experience of the itinerary was the viewing of the Northern Lights in Yukon and the train trip through the Rockies. The trip was organised between August 22- 02 Sep , 2013 and 6 travel partners were accompanied by Tina Singh, Assis-tant Vice President, CTC, India.

Trade FAM to Canada

Oman Tourism recently organised roadshows for the first time in Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

Lubaina Sheerazi, India representative, Ministry of Tourism, Oman, said: “Oman has seen a very positive influx of Indian arrivals in the last few years. In the year 2012, tourist arrivals to Oman amounted to 35.6% increase as compared to 2011. In the last three years, we conducted multi-city road show in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chen-nai. We felt we needed to tap Tier 1 cities of India first before we enter into Tier 2. Having established and promoted our destination effectively over the years in the metro cities, we felt this year we can penetrate into Tier 2 cities of Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.”

Oman Tourism forays into Tier 2 cities

On World Tourism Day on 27th September 2013, Indiatourism Mumbai office organised a successful Incredible India tourism Walk. An early

morning event at the Marine Drive attracted approximately 1000 people including senior professionals from the tourism industry, hotels, tourism colleges & institutions, tourism students, members of guides association.

This year, the World Tourism Day theme was ‘Tourism and Water: Protect-ing our Common Future’. “This year’s theme highlights tourism’s role in water access and shines a spotlight on the actions currently being taken by the sector in order to contribute to a more sustainable water future, as well as the challenges ahead,” said Arun Srivastava, Regional Director (Western & Central India) in Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

Incredible India descends on Marine Drive


56>> 57>> Top appointments

Manish KakkarHotel Manager, ibis Jaipur

Manish Kakkar is the new Hotel Manager of ibis Jaipur. With over 14 years of experience, he was with ibis Gurgaon, in Novotel Hyderabad and HICC, Trident Hilton Gurgaon, Oberoi New Delhi, Hotel Hindustan International and Le Meridien in New Delhi, In his new role, Manish will oversee the hotel’s operations.

Ms. Kanchan RizviDirector of Sales & MarketingThe Claridges Hotels & Resorts

The Claridges Hotel and Resorts has ap-pointed Kanchan Rizvi as the Director of

Sales & Marketing. With 13 years experience, she worked with Radisson Blu Hotel New Delhi Paschim Vihar, Grand Hyatt Mumbai/Hyatt South West Asia Sales Office & the Oberoi. In her new role, Kanchan will be in charge of driv-ing revenue and marketing for the group.

Marc CharronPresidentTripAdvisor for Business

TripAdvisor appointed Marc Charron as Presi-dent of TripAdvisor for Business. He joined TripAdvisor in 2006 and earlier worked with SquareTrade, QXL.com, Getz International Travel and Danube Travel. Marc will be respon-sible for the continued growth and innovation of the division.

Ranjit ShankarGeneral Manager, The Gateway Hotel IT Expressway Chennai

The Gateway Hotel IT Expressway Chennai has appointed Ranjit Shankar as its General Manager. Having 25 years of experience to his credit, with the Taj Group, he has worked with the Vivanta by Taj and Gateway Hotels across the country. In his new role, Ranjit will oversee the overall operations of the hotel.

Jitin NeolHead of Sales, ibis Jaipur

Mike KistnerChief Executive Officer, RezNext

Jitin Neol has been appointed Head of Sales, ibis Jaipur. His first association with Accor In-dia began in 2008 supporting the launch of ibis in India. He has over eight years of experi-ence and worked with Country Inn & Suites by Carlson, Jaypee Hotels and Radisson Edward-ian Hampshire.

Mike Kistner has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of RezNext. With nearly 30 years of experience, he was most recently Chairman and CEO Pegasus Solutions, Inc. In his new role, he will steer the company’s strong focus on the hotel distribution business.

Sarovar Hotels appointed Anil Verma as Vice President–Sales. With over 11 years of experi-ence, he previously worked with Jaypee Hotels, the Grand, Oberoi and most recently at JHM Interstate Hotels India. At Sarovar, Anil will con-ceptualize and implement sales strategies.

Vivek SharmaGeneral Manager, Hilton Garden Inn Gurgaon

Vivek Sharma has been appointed General Manager for Hilton Garden Inn Gurgaon. Having over 15 years of experience, he ear-lier worked with DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore and the Galaxy Hotel, Gurgaon. In his new profile, Vivek will be responsible for the complete running of the hotel.

Florian Kohli has joined Formule 1 Bangalore as the General Manager. With over seven years of experience, he has worked with No-votel HICC, ibis Delhi International Airport, For-mule 1 Greater Noida. In his new role, Florian will oversee the hotel’s operations.

Anjori Kumar has joined Shangri-La’s Eros Ho-tel, New Delhi as the Director of Communica-tions. With over six years of experience in PR and marketing, she has worked with many ho-tels and restaurants. In her new role, she will handle the communications of the hotel.

Florian KohliGeneral Manager, Formule 1, Bengaluru Whitefield

Anil VermaVice President - Sales

Anjori KumarDirector of Communications,Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel, New Delhi


58>>

02, 03, 04, 05International Luxury Travel MarketCannes, France

05, 06, 07, 08Travel Turkey Izmer Tourism Fair & Conference, Izmer, Turkey

06, 07, 08Chengdu International Travel FairChengdu, China

11, 12Brussels Travel ExpoBrussels,Belgium

10, 11, 12, 13INDABADurban,South Africa

December2013

events Calendar

16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23ASEAN Tourism ForumMalaysia

22, 23, 24, 25, 26FiturSpain

17, 18, 19India International Travel MartKochi

24, 25, 26India International Travel MartKolkata

January2014 February20147,8,9The Boston Globe Travel ShowSeaport World Trade Center

19,20,21,22Cro TourCroatia

28 Feb 1, 2 MarchHoliday ExpoCoimbatore

04, 05, 06, 07World Travel Market,London, UK

06, 07Business Travel Market 2013London, UK

08, 09, 10Holiday ExpoVisakhapatnam

22, 23, 24India International Travel MartPune

29, 30 Nov & 01 DecIndia International Travel MartHyderabad

November2013

05, 06, 07ITB, BerlinGermany

19, 20, 21, 22MITTMoscow

26, 27, 28UITTUkraine

March2014

neTwoRkIng IS THe keyneTwoRkIng IS THe key

3,4,5 AitfBaku, Azerbaijan

5,6,7,8Arabian Travel MarketDubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre

April2014

May2014