Inbound needs a shot in the arm
The rate of inbound growth, which has slowed down in the months of December 2012 and January 2013, needs attention and stimulatory measures including release of new promotional campaign and other policy initiatives.
The recent foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) statistics released by the Ministry of Tourism has made some stakeholders concerned in terms of need of initiating measures to stimulate demand. Many others term the slow pace of growth as an aberration as Incredible India continues to march on a high growth trajectory.
“The rate of inbound growth has slowed down in Dec. and Jan. which needs attention. We should initiate measures to stimulate demand for Incredible India,”opined Arjun Sharma, Managing Director, LPTI and TUI India at the PATA-India Chapter interactive session with The Ministry of Tourism held in February.
In fact, the statistics point out that FTAs during January 2013 were 6.99 lakh as compared to FTAs of 6.81 lakh during January 2012 and 6.23 lakh in January 2011. There has been a growth of 2.6 per cent in January 2013 over January 2012 as compared to a growth of 9.4 per cent registered in January 2012 over January 2011. Similarly,
We should initiate measures to stimulate demand for Incredible India
December 2012 and January 2013. The quarter of the present fiscal year had been good. In fact, all leading companies in the luxury inbound space had set aggressive targets in subsequent months and whole of 2013.”
“The growth in leisure inbound luxury segment is backed by the resurgence in the global economy led by the USA and UK. However, the
We had good business in December 2012 and January 2013
“Incredible India had gone quite silent in the international sphere. The new marketing campaign will get the excitement going again,” added Madhok.
All said and done, there is an urgent need to overhaul the visa regime. “The campaign is a marketing activity which is important but we need to convert interest into business. The clients are booking late. Visa turnaround time would help a great deal in getting back volume. Countries like UAE and Thailand as well as Sri Lanka
The slowdown has, largely, been a result of the global economic slowdown
operators should be exempted from service tax requirement for a minimum of 3 years, as currently, Indian DMCs are at a disadvantage and losing business and foreign exchange earnings to SAARC countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, etc,” said Sodhi.
“Lately, there has been an increase in demand for one- of-a-kind travel experiences. Another emerging trend is that of product and service sampling- as travellers need not go with the full array of services and can
Inbound tour operators should be exempted from service tax for a minimum of 3 years