Off-beat destinations bullish on outbound tourism potential of India

While the global tourism industry is bullish on India’s growth story, off-beat and small countries like Rwanda, Romania, Fiji, Bhutan, Egypt, Maldives, etc. are also attempting to ride on the bandwagon believing in India’s outbound tourism potential. These countries are scouting travel and tourism opportunities in India in a big way, thus to be on the wish-list of Indian tourists. The Tourism Promotion Board’s representatives from these countries revealed their
focus plans of India on the sidelines of OTM 2016, which is India’s biggest outbound travel mart that witnessed more than 50 countries promoting their tourism potential to India.

For instance, a tiny country like Rwanda, which had 14,000 tourists from India in 2015, is now expecting about 35% increase in its Indian tourist arrivals in the coming year. For Rwanda, India is the second target tourist destination after China and recognizing the potential, the Rwanda Tourism Department has been promoting their offerings in India in a big way. Rwanda is being developed as a Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions (MICE) hub. Another example is Bhutan where 80,000 tourists visited Bhutan in 2015, the country is now expecting the footfalls to rise to 1,30,000 to 1,50,000. Countries such as Romania, Fiji are also not exception. With multiple offerings, these countries are promoting their tourism opportunities in India.

All these countries participated in OTM – 2016, India’s biggest outbound travel mart that began today in Mumbai.


OTM 2016
OTM 2016 opened on Thursday with the highest attendance ever, with the inauguration by Shri Ram Shankar Shinde, Hon’ble State Tourism Minister of Maharashtra, in the presence of Chief Guest MrsKobkarnWattanavrangkul, Thailand’s Tourism Minister, and other global thought-leaders of the travel fraternity.

It is a three-day B2B trade show, where more than a thousand sellers from 50 participating destinations will meet 6,000 buyers on the exhibition floor. Side by side the trade exhibition, there are a host of innovative events to discuss emerging trends in the travel business, e.g. TechForum@OTM, #StartupKnockDown and Shoot at Site@OTMsessions. These have been planned alongside OTM to specifically address topical agendas that are increasingly catching the industry’s attention.

They are joined by several global destinations at OTM 2016 with the keenness to carve a piece of India’s projected 50 million outbound pie – Indonesia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Thailand, New Zealand, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Bangladesh, Philippines, Maldives, Oman, Bhutan, Seychelles, Israel, Rwanda, Romania, Fiji and Greece are all in place at India’s biggest travel show.
Major Indian destinations are perfectly complementing their international counterparts with Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and many other states, present with large number of sellers from each, to showcase India at its best.