Looking at Bali & beyond
The five-city roadshow conducted by U&I Holidays focused only on Bali with about 25 suppliers travelling to India to meet the travel agents here.
tourism infrastructure. Last year it received around 10 million international tourists of which India was a quarter. “In 2015, we expected around 2,50,000 arrivals from India, but the numbers show we have exceeded that with 2,71,000 Indians. In 2016, we expect to welcome 3,50,000 at least. Free visa-on-arrival is one of the factors for this although $35 for an Indian tourist is nothing,” Siringoringo adds.
Bali is a popular destination with Indians and leveraging on this sentiment, the Director duo from Mumbai-based U&I Holidays Ashish Indulkar and Shyam Upadhyay recently concluded their five-city roadshow that focused on Bali. Starting in New Delhi, the show travelled to Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and finally Mumbai. Indulkar says, “We were pleasantly surprised by the response. We had committed 100 buyers in each city to our partners but we got more. Delhi got 120 buyers, Chennai saw 96 buyers, Bengaluru had 110 while Ahmedabad and Mumbai were a record-breaking 150 buyers.”
Speaking on why they chose to do a Bali-specific roadshow, Upadhyay says, “When we promote Bali we also want people to take extensions to Lombok or Yogyakarta and other places. The focus on Bali attracts the attention of people, and once we do that we try to capitalise on other regions of Indonesia.”
He added that about 2,50,000 people from India had travelled to Indonesia in 2015. Of this, about 90,000 went to Bali. “But this is too less for a destination when we compare it with places like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The market is doing very well and we have to shape it up now. The visa-on-arrival is now free for Indians, the departure tax has been abolished and there is a direct flight starting soon this season. With these developments, we expect Bali to double the number of arrivals.
U&I Holidays will now be increasing its sales teams across India. It has appointed teams in Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru. But Tier-II cities are important as well like Pune, Nagpur, Raipur and Hyderabad.
“We will also open new markets and appointing a representative in Dubai soon who will look after the Middle East market. We will also venture into Europe; we already have a representative in Malaysia as it is the third largest market for Indonesia. In Sri Lanka also we have a representative.”