With 115 Mercedes-Benzes booked in a day in Aurangabad recently, the affluence and purchasing power of people residing in tier-II and tier-III cities haven’t gone unnoticed. Tourism boards of foreign countries in India are looking at these non-Metro cities for tapping the market of first-time travellers. Most tourism boards believe metro cities are right for travellers who want an experiential vacation, with a bit of soft adventure such as camping and scuba diving, while first-time leisure travellers can be tapped in smaller cities.
Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board Director Manoharan said, “Tier-II and tier-III cities are our targets for first-time travellers and we are targeting them through our agents. We have also been doing promotional activities in areas such as the northeast, where we don’t see a lot of tourists coming currently.”
MalaysiaTourism is also expected to be helped by the fact that AirAsia, a low-cost carrier, offers direct flights to tier-II cities such as Kochi and Tiruchirapalli.
The burgeoning middle class is the reason most tourism boards consider India an important market. However, Manoharan was quick to point out that, “Tourists from smaller cities prefer travelling in groups, usually two-three families travel together. It is also important for them to not feel out of place.”
Switzerland Tourism Deputy Director Ritu Sharma agreed: “It’s the tour operators we work with who made us realise that though we thought major metros are contributing to tourists, a large number of people from smaller cities were also becoming a good market. These people were travelling to metro hubs for catching flights. We are working with local travel agents and are also doing media campaigns with regional channels to better tap cities such as Lucknow, Ludhiana, Kanpur and Jaipur.” The Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), though troubled by the fact that there are no direct flights to Macau, is looking to concentrate on smaller cities from next year. MGTO India Representative, Sanjeet, said: “My immediate areas of concentration are Delhi and Mumbai. However, we are also seeing smaller cities rise to prominence and affluence.”
With a large number of corporates in cities such as Pune, the opportunities are plenty and we will be concentrating on Surat, Jalandhar, Coimbatore, among other cities next year onwards.”
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Most Indian travellers visit Macau as a stopover destination, packaged with Hong Kong and Singapore.
Sharma from Switzerland Tourism said direct flights from upcoming affluent cities would help tremendously.
“We don’t expect airline operators to start direct flights from all the cities where we see a market. But, flights from Hyderabad and Ahmedabad would help immensely.”