New Delhi, Feb 11 (Inditop.com) The 78th edition of the Travel and Tourism Fair and the Outbound Travel Mart (TTF&OTM), billed as India’s largest network of travel marts, was inaugurated here Thursday with the tagline – “one world, one Asia”.
The objective of TTF&OTM this year is to increase foreign tourist arrivals to India, which had been affected by the outbreak of swine flu, the recessionary trends and travel advisories issued by several countries fearing terrorist strikes. It is also meant to increase outbound travel to countries across Asia.
The mart being held at Hotel Ashok was inaugurated by Minister of State for Tourism Sultan Ahmed.
Statistics cited by Tourism Secretary Sujit Banerjee said foreign tourist arrival in India had declined 17.6 percent during the first 11 months of 2009, but revived sharply in December to register a 21 percent growth over the corresponding year-ago period.
In 2008, 5.37 million foreign tourists visited India.
Nearly 300 Indian travel and tour operators from across India and 26 countries are taking part in the three-day fair.
The spotlight of the fair is on three emerging tourism markets – China, Thailand and Canada. Other countries of importance branded as ‘feature countries’ include Indonesia, Macau, Syria and Korea.
In the domestic sector, the focus states are Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir. The later has announced 2010 as the ‘Visit Kashmir’ year and is promoting the state has a year-round destination.
“The fact that India has been able to host such a mega tourism fair proves that the country’s potential as a tourism destination is growing. We want to promote India as a major global destination,” Ahmed said after inaugurating the travel mart.
“With the Commonwealth Games scheduled for October, we have opened up several new destinations in rural tourism, adventure tourism, desert tourism and helipad tourism in the northeast to draw more foreign tourists,” the minister told Inditop.
The function was also attended by Zhang Yan, the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Krit Kraichitti, ambassador of Thailand in India and Kesang Wangdi, director-general of the Tourism Council of Bhutan.
China, one of the fastest growing tourism markets in Asia along with India, is looking at more business footfalls from India, Zhang said.
“Nearly 400,000 business people from India visit China every year. But we want more leisure and business travellers from India,” Zhang told Inditop.
The Chinese envoy said his country was trying set more linkages between the two nations in promoting religious tourism. “We want more Indian tourists to visit the Buddhist tourism trails in China and vice-versa because Buddhism is a common cultural legacy. China has declared 2010 as the cultural exchange year with India,” he said.
The two countries will host year-long cultural festivals in their respective turfs – festival of China in India and festival of India in China – to promote tourism, he said.
“2010 is a significant year for China in terms of tourism. The Shanghai Expo will begin from May 1 to Oct 31 followed by the Asian Games from Nov 19. We are looking at big numbers in foreign arrivals,” the envoy said.
