‘India is a valuable market for Britain’

Business travel from India is also not just about business. The business traveler extends his travel to the weekend and also acts as leisure tourist.

We are the only NTO probably to have an online shop. VisitBritainShop.com is a platform we have created to allow UK suppliers to sell their products online. We have about 250 products onboard currently across all of Britain. We do not sell accommodation or airline tickets. We sell attraction and museum tickets, tours, London transport, rail tickets, etc. Currently there are 14 online shops in 11 different currencies and seven languages. For the current financial year 2014-15, we are looking at a turnover of 18 million pound. Thus, the online shop is a significant part of Visit Britain. This is mainly for the con- sumers but seven per cent of our revenues come from the travel trade as well. We have facility where the travel agent can buy it online from us. On an average, we give commissions of about five- eight per cent to the agents. But our BritAgents get extra discount as well.