Focus on digital marketing
Based in South India, the Association of Tourism Trade Organisations, India (ATTOI), has taken up quite a few initiatives to promote tourism in and out of India.
With a major focus on technology, ATTOI has started a few projects to benefit industry stakeholders. One such project is www. mytourreview.com. Speaking on the same, P. K. Anish Kumar, President, ATTOI, said, “There was no online reputation management available for the tour operators across the world, while TripAdvisor was meant for hotels. Tour operators lost clients just because there was no benchmarking of tour operators or there was no way to gauge the quality of services by the users. Thus, ATTOI crated this platform, and without any promotion this platform has been emerging as the global network platform for tour operators and travellers. At present, over 500 tour operators are reviewed by 300 travellers.”
ATTOI is also organising the second edition of International Conference on Travel Technology India ( ICTT India). Talking about the event, Kumar said, “It’s an educational event for tourism stakeholders to beat competition by adapting the latest travel technologies and social media. Leading speakers and experts are coming for the second edition of the ICTT to be held from June 9, 2017.”
He feels that despite having a positive image world over, Indian tourism has not got the desired share of foreign tourist arrivals. Listing the reasons behind the same, he said, “It’s mainly because we couldn’t increase the market size. India gets 70 per cent of the tourist arrivals from less than 15 countries. We need to increase the market size by targeting emerging markets and segment of travellers below 50 years.” He also said that the country is not favoured by honeymooners despite having some of the best palaces and resorts. “We need to target this segment of people by highlighting the most romantic destinations of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Agra, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh,” added Kumar.
He insisted that there is a need to focus on digital marketing to promote the products on offer in India. “India has the largest number of social media influencers and we need to use these social celebrities to promote our culture, rich heritage, nature, and diversified tourism products to the new generation travellers. Focused online marketing strategies for non English speaking source markets should be given priority.”