State tourism marts: More than just biz

As more states jump on the bandwagon to promote themselves through individual marts, speaks to different state tourism associations and travel stakeholders to gauge the effect of such state travel marts in increasing business in the state.

With a focus on regional products and activities, an ever-increasing number of states in India are now gearing up to host their own tourism marts in the country. Aimed at showcasing the individual states, state travel marts bring about face-to-face interactions between the travel trade, hote- liers and other stakeholders to promote tourism.

The oldest mart running successfully is Kerala Tourism’s biennial travel mart, Kerala Travel Mart (KTM). Since its launch in 2000, KTM has been getting overwhelming response from both domestic and international players. The eighth edition of KTM that concluded recently had 245 sellers showcasing the state’s hospitality and other tourism products to around 1,300 buyers. According to Johny Abraham George, President, KTM Society, KTM 2014 broke all past records in terms of arrival of buyers. “Among the hosted buyers, there were 861 domestic and 241 international ones. There were an expected 30,000 buyer-seller appointments lined up for the Mart. However, the figures crossed 40,000 business sittings between potential buyers and sellers,” he informed. While UK, Germany, France, Malaysia and USA topped in the number of buyers, newer markets such as Singapore, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic and Brazil also had a strong repre- sentation in terms of buyers. Altogether, 45 countries were present at KTM 2014,” he added.

Regarding new initiatives to facilitate meetings in a better way, George revealed, “Buyers and sellers in this edition of KTM were able to schedule meetings and discuss business opportunities with the help of a new mobile application. The app sent alerts on meetings and the programme schedule. The buyers and sellers were listed on the app and appointments were being made online.”

Throwing light on the impact of KTM 2014 for travel trade stakeholders in tourism in Kerala, Riaz Ahmed, Managing Director, Abad Hotels and Resorts pointed out, “This time, the mood at KTM was mixed. Just as there is optimism among new players, there is a sense of uncertainty among old-timers caused by exorbitant airfares and rising competition, which is making the destination unviable. “Kerala’s USP of the small and local has undergone a shift and is fast becoming too main- stream. The state’s culinary aspect remains untapped and this could also possibly be a sell-out.”

Organised by Gujarat Tourism, Gujarat Travel Mart (GTM) has carved a place as a major event in the exhibition space in India, and the third edition of the Mart in 2013 witnessed over 250 hosted buyers, including 100 international buyers from more than 30 countries. “Last year, hosted buyers were invited from the Netherlands, Bahrain, Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE, UK, USA, South Africa and Ukraine. Amongst the hosted buyers, the main focus internationally was on Europe and domestically the focus was on metros and Tier-II cities,” Sanjay Kaul, Managing Director, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat (TCGL) remarked.