A delegation of tourism companies travelled with Tourism Ireland to India to take part in a four-day travel trade mission in Mumbai and Delhi this week – in a bid to increase Ireland’s share of this rapidly-growing tourism market.
The trade mission involves a series of B2B workshops, presentations, sales calls and networking events with influential travel agents and tour operators from around India – providing an excellent opportunity for the participating companies to showcase their product and do business face-to-face with key Indian decision-makers. The companies from Ireland will also be interviewed by some of the main travel and lifestyle journalists in both cities.
Although use of the internet for planning and booking holidays is on the increase, travel agents remain extremely important in India; so, the principle objective of the sales mission is to build awareness among the top travel agents and tour operators about the many things to see and do on a holiday or business trip to Ireland and to encourage them to include the destination in their future travel programmes and brochures.
Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar said: “I’m delighted to see the Irish travel trade taking up this opportunity to develop the Indian market. India was one of the first tourism markets I visited as Minister for Tourism and it has vast potential for Ireland. While our short-term focus is The Gathering, I would like to congratulate the Irish companies involved in this mission for taking this great opportunity.”
