STIC Travel Group recently announced plan to extensively promote India as a tourist destination in South East Asia. With their first international office in Singapore, Subhash Goyal, Chairman, STIC Travel Group now plans to open marketing offices in other Asian cities for promotion of customised tour itineraries for India and other destinations like Sri Lanka. Goyal, opined, “Asia Pacific is the world’s largest travel market and it is slated to grow at an exponential rate. However, India is still focused on only the long haul markets for inbound business such as US, Europe and Australia. While these markets are important, we feel that to have a more long term and stable growth strategy we need to look eastwards towards cultures we have a greater affinity with in Asia and South East Asia.”
STIC also participated in the recently concluded ITB Asia 2013 in Singapore. At the show the company was focused on showcasing the diverse array of experiences that travellers to India can enjoy ranging from the popular Golden triangle to Yoga and wellness tours. Singapore-based Richa Goyal Sikri, Director – Group Business Development, STIC Travel Group further elaborates, “There is a tremendous lack of confidence towards our country internationally and a significant information gap. We first started by educating travel agents and operators about the destination and distributed a lot of informative material to support them. Currently, about 60 per cent of the international sales revenue of STIC comes from Western countries. With focused efforts towards tourism promotion within Asia, we plan to take this ratio to a more balanced 50-50 equation. We would like to have the Asian emerging markets contribute at least 20 per cent more in our overall sales figures.”
