An open world

Even as inbound tourists increase, several countries of the world eye outbound Indians.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Indian tourism industry is witnessing some of the best times in the last decade. While in 1992 India had two million tourist arrivals, by 2003 it grew to three million and in just another year-and-a-half it grew to four million. And it's not only the incoming traffic that has increased.

The year 2005 saw a record jump in outbound traffic as well, with almost seven million tourist departures. And with more and more foreign countries setting up shop and luring Indian tourists, industry analysts expect the numbers to go further up.

These numbers and trends were highlighted at the South Asia Travel and Tourism Exhibition (SATTE) conference held in New Delhi last week (the theme: "Open World").

According to the organisers, the whole world is looking at India not just as an investment destination, but also as a tourist destination.

Apart from the usual tourist havens like Goa, Uttaranchal and Kerala, states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and North Eastern states also seem to have realised the potential of tourism.

As a Delhi-based tourism analyst puts it, "Other states have taken leads from Goa and Kerala and realised that tourism has great potential and can do wonders to a state's economy."

As part of the Incredible India campaign, the North Eastern states had combined to offer packages to tourists and had co-located stalls too.

Most organisers accept that offbeat packages "" like a Brahmaputra river cruise or Manas National Park bird watch trip or Pindari Glaciers trek "" tend to sell more.

"Unusual trips and packages attract tourists more these days, specially foreign tourists because regular tours can be managed on one's own also," says an exhibitor in one such stall.

While Tamil Nadu was promoting itself as a temple destination, the seven sisters of the North East represented themselves as a destination for nature lovers. These states were particularly looking at attracting Chinese and Tibetan travellers.

"Not many know there is a mini Thailand and a mini China in the North East," says an exhibitor at the stall. Madhya Pradesh was being sold for its national parks "" Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench.

With many more foreign sellers this time, a large B2B platform was created which led to many more ideas and deals.

While there were a few countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Egypt and Poland represented last year, joining them this year were hot tourist destinations like the UK, Ireland, Romania, Fiji and Mauritius.

With Poland experiencing over 16 million tourist arrivals last year (mostly Europeans), the country sees a lot of potential travellers from China and India this year.

Says an official of the Poland tourism Board: "We have realised that India and China are the two most important emerging countries for tourism."

With cruising becoming the most sought after tourism activity, two big cruises "" Royal Caribbean and InterGlobe "" also joined the bandwagon of sellers this year, along with some French cruises. InterGlobe, for instance, had almost 10,000 outbound Indian tourists going on cruises to destinations like Norway and Caribbean.

The next big thing, as far as Indian outbound travel is concerned, is group tours. With competition becoming stiffer by the day, SOTC and Raj Travel, who were not there last year, put up their stalls this time.

Organisers, however, are counting numbers. Says one organiser: "The number of Indian agents doubled to 450 this year."

There were over 2,700 buyers as well. And with over 250 overseas tour operators representing 36 countries, SATTE organisers see this event providing a large B2B platform even while it generated a lukewarm response on the B2C front. Buyers included delegations which matter "" those from the US, Mauritius, Guatemala, Peru and Brazil.

Industry analysts, however, feel that India needs more tourism infrastructure (and fast) if it is to maximise its potential as a "simply must" destination. There are about 98,000 star class rooms in India, against 7,00,000 in China. "Beijing alone has as many rooms as India," sighs an analyst.