April 25, 2018 TnH Global 0

FICCI GITB-2018 concludes with an overwhelming response from Foreign Tour Operators

10th edition of The Great Indian Travel Bazaar (GITB) ended with an overwhelming response from the Foreign Tour Operators. The ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ from International and Indian market expressed great satisfaction on account of almost 11,000 meetings held over the last two days.

Speaking about the success of GITB 2018, Additional Chief Secretary Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, Subodh Agarwal said that GITB has had a very positive response this year as well. Such global scale events are helping bring Rajasthan on the world map. The pre-structured meetings were customised to meet the needs of the respective buyers. The event also saw a large number of first-timers who benefited from various business interactions under one roof.

Speaking about Department of Tourism initiatives towards curating a digitized tourism marketing campaign, Agarwal further said that Rajasthan has fully transformed its marketing strategy with an aggressive campaign with new elements like an award-winning logo, vibrant website, exquisite presence across all social media handles, and adopting the concept of co-creation by telling ‘One’s own story’.

Consultant- Tourism FICCI, Rahul Chakravarty said that 280 foreign buyers from 55 countries had intensive one-on-one meetings with 270 Indian sellers over a period of two days. A whopping 10,963 pre-scheduled B2B meetings were held this year. Other than this, as many as 9 participating States and Rajasthan also displayed their tourism prowess through interactions as well as their promotional literature and visual films.

The General Secretary of Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA), Randhir Vikram Singh said that GITB serves the three-fold purpose of inviting FTOs from across the globe. All organisation officials are available under one roof, and this provides scope to small players of the industry to interact with FTOs and Indian buyers at their home ground. The show has always had a positive response from the sellers and buyers, who are happy with the outcome the show had on their business. The Department is also going to organise ‘Domestic Travel Mart’ from 20 to 22 July with the sole objective of increasing tourism in Rajasthan by organising numerous road shows across the country.

The General Manager of ‘Heritage Palace on Wheels’, Pradeep Bohra said that there were many positive queries about the luxury train. These queries should translate into confirmed bookings soon. The FTOs who came by train also expressed their enthusiasm about it as a viable tourism product.

Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organised the two-day GITB. The event is supported by leading national and regional associations like Hotel & Restaurant Association of Rajasthan (HRAR), Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA) and Rajasthan Association of Tour Operators (RATO).