VisitBritain Mumbai-bound
VisitBritain has moved its headquarters from New Delhi to Mumbai and has named Vishal Bhatia as its Interim Country Manager. Sumathi Ramanathan, Director - Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, VisitBritain, explains this move.
Q Why is the head of Delhi to Mumbai?
Mumbai is the business and financial hub and therefore allows us to strategically engage with our key airline, trade and entertainment industry partners who are all headquartered there. We are still maintaining a senior presence in Delhi with the impending appointment of a Deputy Country Manager to be based there. Our trade engagement in the North and East are vital for our business and we will maintain a B2B role in Delhi as well. Q Is this part of the global shift in structure at VisitBritain?
As most businesses, adapting to business needs is necessary and this is an India specific move to ensure we are best placed to be optimising opportunities to grow the inbound market from India to Britain. Tourism thrives on interdependencies and partnerships and we are investing in senior resources in both Mumbai and Delhi to ensure we are strategically placed to nurture these partnerships. Q Will VisitBritain also amend its strategy for the India market?
The strategy remains the same and it reflects the vision to increase global visitor numbers to 40 million visits by 2020. India remains one of our key growth market and we will continue investing in relevant partnerships with the trade, airlines, media and Bollywood. We will up weigh our focus on content and digital marketing with the aim of converting more visitors to not only stay longer in Britain but to also explore the countryside and key capital cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh.