In 2015, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) crossed a milestone of one million visitors from India. To sustain and grow tourist traffic from the Indian market, STB recently organised a 10-day, six-city road show across key markets in India and Colombo in Sri Lanka. Themed “Extending Hands in Partnership”, the delegation was led by GB Srithar, Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) newly appointed Regional Director for South Asia, Middle East and Africa (SAMEA).
The Singapore delegation comprised representatives from top hotels, cruise liners, attractions, airlines and Destination Management Companies (DMCs), which travelled to the cities of Colombo in Sri Lanka and then to the Indian cities of Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Jalandhar.
The sessions saw an enthusiastic turnout from travel trade professionals with an average participation of 135 agents per city. While addressing the trade during the road shows, GB Srithar emphasised on meaningful collaborations with the in-market travel trade, introducing new travel experiences for the Indian audiences and to jointly embark on creative marketing campaigns. Speaking along the sidelines of the events, he said, “As we move into the next exciting phase of promoting Singapore to wider audiences in tier II cities, we look to fostering closer strategic and tactical partnerships with the travel trade to entrench the positioning of Singapore as one of the must-see destinations for the Indian audiences.”
This installment of the roadshow saw STB introducing new technologies like Virtual Reality experience, featuring the STB-developed Merlion Hunt VR game. At selected cities, STB also set up a special photo-booth that used green-screen technology and Singapore-themed props to take guests on a virtual tour through a series of iconic tourism attractions around Singapore, which kept the events fun and casual.
