In Kangaroo & Kiwi land
PATA India in association with MOT organised its first roadshow in Australia and New Zealand with 19 sellers from India. The cross section of sellers included top-end DMCS, wellness, adventure and cruise suppliers, etc.
The joint Incredible India and PATA India Chapter roadshow that visited New Zealand and Australia concluded recently. Talking about the importance of Down Under as a source market for India, Runeep Sangha, Executive Director, PATA India Chapter reveals, “Australia features in the top 10 source countries for tourist arrivals into India. It is a growing market with a strong currency. These two factors should encourage greater travel from Australia to India. At 1,86,000 tourists, there is plenty of headroom, which, we can aim to occupy given the many tourism options Incredible India offers.”
Regarding the response to the PATA India roadshow, Sangha feels, “This was our first roadshow to the region. It was well received and going by the attendance and B2B engagement, generated a good amount of interest amongst Australia/New Zealand’s tour operators and travel agents. We had 19 sellers from India and the cross section of sellers included top-end DMCs, wellness, adventure and cruise suppliers, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Air India and leading hotel chains as well. Over 88 per cent of our participants found this to be a useful initiative and 75 per cent were satisfied with the outcome. Many participants would like to go back to these markets next year as well.”
Throwing light on the bottlenecks, for promoting Incredible India, in the region, the Executive Director laments, “Connectivity has been a big challenge for tourism flows between our countries. Qantas and Air India have both withdrawn their services. We are now looking forward to Air India introducing the non-stop Dreamliner connectivity, which will make travel more convenient. Australia coupled with New Zealand is a vast region and building awareness is of paramount importance.”
Adventure tourism needs to be one of the key themes to attract tourists to India from this part of the world. On the ground, the tourism fraternity and India Tourism are seized of the challenge and are working in sync to promote tourism to India, he adds. Going forward, the PATA India Chapter plans to increase its visibility in the Down Under region.