The Indian market is a very important to Italy making it vital for the destination to once again establish its presence here, opined Ivano Fucci, Project Coordinator, Italia Comes To You. “Italy is seeing a steady increase in the number of tourists from India. In future, our delegation will continue to make more trips to the country to build relationships with the Indian travel trade,” he added. The event received good response from the trade. “We have witnessed over 700 attendees over two days at the Mumbai exhibition,” he said. The three city exhibition includes Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.
The event also witnessed a seminar and a B2B workshop on tourism. As many as 25 suppliers from Italy participated in the seminar and workshop as well as in the B2B meetings with the Indian travel trade. The five-day exhibition will also include a training programme for the Indian travel trade. “The exhibition will give a new dimension to our aim of promoting Italy’s culture and landscape in India. Moreover, the three-hour training programme educated travel agents and tour operators about Italy and its tourism products and offerings, particularly with regard to the regions that were present at the exhibition, such as Tuscany, Valle d’Aosta, Veneto, Puglia and Piedmont,” he said.
Travel agents and tour operators who participate in the training programmes will receive a certificate of attendance from ENIT. A seminar was also held by the DMC’s that spoke of India’s importance as a market and also featured VFS Global highlighting the visa process and growth in number of applications. On the sidelines of the event Fucci revealed that ENIT plans to re-establish its India office early next year, “By December, ENIT will finalise the head for the India office,” he informed.
