The recently concluded 4th annual Showcase Canada Asia 2012 event in Osaka witnessed the attendance of over 250 buyers from Japan, Korea, China and India who interacted with 87 Canadian sellers to know more about a vast range of the Canadian tourism products. Around 40 buyers from India participated in the event and sellers were of the opinion that there has been a tremendous response from the Indian market. Charles McKee, Vice President, International, Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) and Siobhan Chretien, Regional Managing Director, CTC, interacted with Indian media to talk about the Indian market.
“We returned to India three years ago and since then it’s been a terrific opportunity to reconnect with the market. Indian visitors to Canada have been growing in the range of 19-25 per cent annually,” McKee said, and added that Canada and India are natural partners and share many bonds including the Commonwealth heritage. According to him, there are 960,000 Indians from the upper middle class and beyond who are keen to visit Canada over the next few years.
He also expressed his happiness about ‘Brand USA’, the tourism promotion agency of US, coming to India. “The positive thing (about Brand USA) is that we now have another voice talking about North America,” he said, and informed that Canada’s offering are very different from the US. According to him, this will further help Canada increase footfall from India. “Competition for a country like Canada is not the neighbour USA, but Asia, Australia and Europe, which takes tourists away from us. The most important aspect is to find the right set of travellers,” he revealed, and agreed that Canada and US can be combined beautifully and sold it to the Indian market.
Chretien opined that there has been a remarkable shift in Indian travellers profile. ‘There has been an increase in leisure numbers and average length of stay, and average spend of VFR is growing. As per our marketing and sales strategy, we are tapping higher educated and high yielding tourists from India,” she said.
Apart from the leisure segment, CTC has also been working towards tapping the growing potential of the Indian MICE segment. “We received very encouraging feedback from some of the leading tour operators of India. We will give more thrust to MICE in 2013,” Chretien said. According to McKee, CTC had some wonderful opportunities to showcase our MICE potential to key decision makers in India, like the Bollywood IIFA Awards. “We have sophisticated infrastructure for MICE and want to see the growth in this segment. MICE always brings repeat visitors,” he added.
Both of them were of the opinion that direct connectivity, which is lacking as of now, between India and Canada will act as a catalyst to push the Indian traffic to Canada. “There are very few aircraft that have had the range to be able to profitably fly a sector like India and Canada. We are hopeful that, with the arrival of new aircraft like the B 787s, airlines will rethink these routes, which have a strong traffic base and good mix of business and leisure traffic between the two countries,” McKee said. He further stated that Canada is witnessing a new chapter in the global aviation sector. “Due to technological advancement, it will be possible to fly long range at lower costs with more advanced aircraft. It is our job to continue to build demand that will certainly bring planes on to the India – Canada route,” he concluded.
Sellers Speak
“We are closely working with Canadian Tourism Commission to create awareness about our tourism products in India since 2009. Since then, we met around 150 Indian buyers and educated them about our products.”
– Monica Leeck, Market Development Manager, Asia; Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation; Tourism British Columbia
“Although India is a relatively new and emerging market for us, we had some nice groups from here. We are mainly getting FIT and small groups from India. In 2011, 45,000 Indians visited Vancouver, which has the second largest Indian population and more than 100 Indian restaurants.”
– Dayna Miller, Director of Sales, Travel Trade, Tourism Vancouver
“We are interested in Indian and Asian MICE markets. We are meeting a lot of tour operators in India and Asia and also forging a long–term association with them. We have also hosted several Indian weddings.”
– Stephanie Johnson, Director, Business Development – Asia Pacific, Vancouver Convention Centre
