The year 2013 started off with a bang. India was ready and raring to go, notching outbound numbers that made NTOs heads spin. And this spirit encouraged these entities to further boost their marketing efforts in India. Malaysia announced its Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014; South African Tourism (SAT) announced its ‘10 Days in South Africa’ competition and ‘Jonty Rhodes 2.0 campaign’; VisitBritain launched a Bollywood app that guides Indian film lovers to locations around the country where their favourite films were shot; New South Wales welcomed an Indian TV crew to shoot in the city, and so on.
On a B2B front, SAT is set to add to its Learn SA module; Tourism New Zealand launched a new trade website; Thailand has increased its sops for Indian film shootings; VisitBritain facilitated an MoU between travel associations in UK and India; Ireland launched a new brochure; familiarisation trips continued; trainings, workshops and roadshows by every destination saw more visitors and registered more interest… the list goes on.
While they all try to woo in various ways, the goal is common – a piece of the Indian outbound pie.
Halfway through 2013, the Rupee value fell against the US$, and the impact on outbound tourism was visible. While the slide provided the silver lining of increasing inbound numbers to India, the outbound traveller became more wary, their trips became more budgeted, and the destinations were more confined to short-haul ones. However, the Indian market has proven its resilience time and again, resulting in NTOs increasing their efforts to woo it.
The mediocre year
Despite the Rupee depreciation, India pulled through as far as expectations from the destinations went. A strong first half of the year meant that they registered a healthy Indian footfall, followed by a reasonable performance at the tail-end of the year, when the initial shock of the depreciated Rupee value wore off.
“2013 was great up to a point. We had a rocking start – our growth was in double digits, nearly 20 per cent. And if you take the previous year and the year before, we saw tremendous increases and were thrilled to keep that pace. We went storming into season, and then the rupee dropped in value, and the gates shut for us. However, people started getting smarter. They started calculating the land cost of the trip and that was where South Africa won as a value-for-money destination,” said Hanneli Slabber, Country Head, South African Tourism.
Echoing Slabber’s optimism, Arturo Ortiz, Director-India, Tourism Office of Spain revealed that the weakening of the rupee meant that the year didn’t start off as per expectations, but official statistics show a growth of nearly 20 per cent. The Indian footfall to Spain grew from roughly 60,000 to 72,000. Australia witnessed a healthy increase in visitor arrivals from India and welcomed 171,700 visitors during 2013, an increase of 7.9 per cent over 2012. According to Amanda Burns, General Manager – Middle East & Asia, Tourism Ireland, they estimate a 7-10 per cent growth in 2013. “Year-on-year numbers have been really positive coming out of India,” she said.
Emerging markets step up efforts
Realising the value of the Indian market, emerging destinations have begun to increase their efforts in the country as well. Most recently, Visit Tampa Bay announced Aviareps as their India representatives. In less than a year of functioning, Seychelles Tourist India office has recorded a growth in Indian arrivals to Seychelles. According to Lubaina Sheerazi, Head, Blue Square Consultants, Seychelles Tourist office, India, the first 10 weeks of 2014 itself have seen a rise in the number of Indians travelling to Seychelles by 37 per cent in comparison to the same period last year.
Tourism in India is currently worth an estimated A$183 million a year to the New South Wales (NSW) economy, revealed Sandra Chipchase, Chief Executive Officer, Destination NSW. She further added that, owing to the growing importance of India as a source market, there has been an increase both operationally and in their marketing budget in India.
Their most recent marketing effort saw a successful ‘Jhappi Time’ campaign’. Chipchase further added that NSW will continue to engage with the trade through hosted trade programmes and events, sales calls, training workshops, collateral support for marketing and co-op campaigns, as well as work closely with the various trade associations.
Short haul gets the long straw
The ones who reaped the benefits of the Rupee depreciation were the short-haul countries. Last year, about 651,000 Indian travellers visited Malaysia, making the country the sixth top tourist generating markets to Malaysia. For the period January – December 2013, Dubai recorded 888,835 Indian visitors staying at Dubai’s hotel establishments gaining ground of 16.3 per cent over the corresponding year 2012. Thailand witnessed 10,49,856 Indian travellers during 2013. This represented about 4 per cent growth over 2012. Furthermore, India’s share of the international tourism arrivals to Thailand was 4 per cent.
And the success of last year has further strengthened their resolve to attract more Indian visitors in 2014. Thailand, for one, is fine-tuning its focus on tier II cities, revealed Sethaphan Buddhani, Director, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Mumbai. Apart from roadshows and familiarisation trips, the NTO is also co-marketing with key Indian tour operators to lure repeat visitors.
Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) is getting ready to embark on a series of joint travel trade promotions (trade coops) to tap the upcoming summer holiday break in addition to encouraging niche segments such as weddings, special occasions and leisure sports. In addition, DTCM will have a robust marketing and advertising campaign to reach out to the travelling public at large on a pan India level, inclusive of tier II and III cities, stated Carl Vaz, Director – India, DTCM, Government of Dubai.
As part of their VMY 2014 strategy, Tourism Malaysia has planned over 200 exciting events for Indian travellers which can be customised and packaged. “We look forward to working even more closely with our partners and travel trade here to increase arrivals from India to Malaysia. We are reaching our end consumers through various joint promotions and contests. FAMs and attractive incentives are planned for tour operators and wedding planners. Tourism Malaysia has taken a multi-channel approach with steadily increasing its presence on the social networking platform, thus making an effort to cater to all sections of the society,” said Manoharan Periasamy, Director, Tourism Malaysia.
What lies ahead
India is ranked as one of the top five countries in the world for potential outbound travel. The number of Indians travelling overseas is set to rise from nearly 15 million at present, to 50 million by 2020. A report by Amadeus-Frost & Sullivan stated that outbound travel from India has more than doubled over the past five years. The NTOs are hence, unsurprisingly, optimistic about 2014. NSW hopes to grow international tourism from India by 10 per cent this year. Spain expects a growth of 8-10 per cent. “The incredible thing about the Indian market is that it is incredibly resilient. It falls and recovers with equal vigour. For us Rs. 62 to US$ 1 is the new normal,” said Slabber.
According to her, competition on the ground will get a lot stricter in 2014. Travellers will get more difficult this year and demand for tailor-made itineraries will increase. “At ITB, UNWTO said they are looking at 4-6 per cent growth, with Africa being one of the big beneficiaries. I think countries such as Africa, India, Brazil, South America, will outperform the others as we provide value for money and great travel products,” she opined.
NTOs have left no stone unturned to make themselves visible to Indian travellers. “Going beyond the realms of traditional advertising, in 2014, we have explored interesting in-film and in-serial placements to leverage the popularity and reach of Hindi cinema and television drama serials. The latter half of the year will also see a build up to the mega sporting event – the Cricket World Cup that will be co-hosted in Australia in 2015,” said Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager India & Gulf, Tourism Australia.
Catherine Oden, Director, Atout France India revealed that Atout France will continue to promote novel experiences under the “Be There! Do That!” banner which essays to portray France in a different light. Towards the end of March, in collaboration with the Chamonix Tourism Board, the destination will be hosting a gastronomic dinner for food and travel bloggers. “Cognisant of the impact Bollywood has on Indian audiences, we are in talks with a production house for filming song sequences of a movie in picturesque French destinations in May,” she added.
TAT is working towards promoting Thailand’s culinary products and festivals, and is focusing on increased length of stay. “People are staying longer in Thailand, given that travel agents (responding to customer interest) are adding new destinations and experiences to itineraries. We hope to witness and increased length of stay with Indians opting for Muay Thai classes and culinary classes while also exploring more of the destination,” said Buddhani.
Working with the trade
The importance of the travel trade in India is not lost on any of the destinations. While their advertising campaigns and promotional strategies seem extravagant, their plans for the travel trade are more intricately sketched out. Atout France‘s focus this year will be to enhance France’s positioning as a business destination, so their actions will include participation in a MICE-centric workshop. They will also conduct an online training focusing on the MICE segment that will be launched towards the end of March. This will be followed by a visit from the suppliers from the Champagne Ardenne Tourist Board in June, who will tour New Delhi and Mumbai.
“The travel trade fraternity and their contribution to helping us promote our destination remains invaluable. We are looking at fortifying our relations with the trade and will plan on developing valuable contacts in tier II and III cities to enhance our positioning in other potential markets in addition to Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. In an effort to enhance product knowledge, we have also launched an online training in collaboration with the Chamonix Tourist Board that shall focus on presenting our destinations from the experiential viewpoint,” Oden added.
Tourism Australia has a consistent trade engagement program, at the core of which is the online Aussie Specialist Program for providing destination training to travel agents. This program currently has over 3,500 agents of which over 900 are qualified Aussie Specialist agents across India.
“Furthermore, our annual trade activity, India Travel Mission (ITM) is usually held in the month of August, and the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) is to be held in Cairns in May this year – which provides a fantastic opportunity for our trade partners to meet and engage with suppliers of Australian tourism experiences,” said Kashikar.
Dubai DTCM is taking measures to amplify its online training programme- ‘Dubai Experts’ which has met with considerable success. They currently have over 2,000 travel agents and tour operators that have registered, completed or are in the process of completion the Dubai Expert certification. DTCM also conducts destination training workshops at regular intervals that help build relationships with the travel agents to promote the Destination and provides them an insight into the destination thus encouraging them to promote the emirate, revealed Vaz.
Sheerazi commented that Seychelles is glad with the positive response of the Indian travel trade for Seychelles. “An apt testimony for this is the phenomenal footfalls we saw at our booth in SATTE, New Delhi. We are currently working towards getting the trade community familiarised with the destination and support them in designing market sensitive products. For the same we will be conducting roadshows, destination trainings, participating in trade fairs and organising FAMs,” she added.
Tourism Ireland has launched its Ireland Specialist Programme online on irelandspecialists.com, with six modules, some of which is tweaked to be a bit relevant to the Indian market. “The trade is a really important facet for us. What I would love is for the Irish industry to come again to India to engage in more personal sales calls on the back of the India sales mission. Another effort we have been making is to get Ireland India-ready, to educate the Irish about what the Indian consumer is looking for and expects, such as the need for service, the search for best price, religious and cultural preferences and so on,” said Burns.
Spain has tried to be consistent on the marketing plan and not introduce new products or dramatically change the products being promoted so far, stated Ortiz. “We will continue to focus on Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Last year started penetrating tier II as well. Furthermore, we took agents to Madrid last year for a workshop there, and plan to take another 18 to Andalusia in September this year for the same,” he concluded.
