WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is one of the must-attended three-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry. Almost 50,000 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, embark on ExCeL London every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM London.
Ministry of Tourism, Government of India participated as Official Premier Partner at WTM London 2016. At this years World Travel Market, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism and for Culture (Independent charge), inaugurated the World Travel Market along with Mr. Simon Press, Executive Director, WTM London and Mr. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. India participated in full strength with 42 co-exhibitors in the India Pavilion comprising State Governments/Union Territory Administrations, tourism stakeholders etc.
Online analysis on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, forums, news sites, blogs, YouTube and Instagram during the course of the three-day show has revealed, the most talked-about destinations and topics, following research by PR specialist Bell Pottinger. India gained online traction after being named one of the hot spots for 2017 and second most talked about destinations in the world.
India Tourism is already showing signs of an upswing by way of growth of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in the current year. When the annual international growth rate is around 4 to 4.5%, India is witnessing double digit growth of 10.5% in the current year.Foreign Tourist arrivals in India during the period January- October, 2016 were 69,61,660 with a growth of 10.5% as compared to the Foreign Tourist Arrival of 62,98,463 during January-October 2015. Foreign Exchange Earnings during the same period has witnessed growth of 14.7%. This positive development is expected to continue during remaining period of this year.
Domestic tourism also continues to be an important contributor to the tourism sector providing much needed resilience. There has been a continuous increase in domestic tourist visits, with the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of domestic tourist visits to all States / UTs from 1991 to 2015 being 13.63 per cent. In 2015, Domestic Tourism recorded tourist visits of 1431.97 million visits. During the current calendar year, the number of Domestic Tourist visits is likely to reach a record 1700 million.
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