DRNew Delhi: Celebrating the stellar success of the silver jubilee edition of SATTE, South Asia’s leading travel and tourism exhibition, UBM India launched its much-vaunted B2B travel and trade show in the national capital on January 31. The three-day event rolled out the red carpet to over 1000 exhibitors and representatives from over 50 countries and 28 Indian states. As a prelude to the inauguration, the exhibition was formally launched along with the second edition of the SATTE Awards on January 30 at the Le Meridien, New Delhi. The industry platform is supported by the Union Ministry of Tourism and the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government of India.
Acknowledging SATTE’s growing stature in the global tourism arena, K J Alphons, Minister for Tourism (I/C), Govt. of India, said, “Last year was amazing for India from a tourism perspective. We clocked a growth rate of 15.2 per cent in terms of foreign tourist arrivals. When it comes to domestic tourism, we had 1.8 billion tours (not travellers) in the country. In three years from now, we aim to double the number of international tourist arrivals, increase the contribution of the tourism industry to GDP to 10 per cent from the current 6.8 per cent and double employment opportunities.”
The launch ceremony was attended by T S Rawat, Chief Minister, Uttarakhand; Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog; Faiyaz Koya, Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Fiji; I Gde Pitana, Dy. Tourism Minister, Indonesia; Bo Keun Choi, Senior Officer, Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific, UNWTO; Subhash Goyal, Member, National Tourism Advisory Committee; Navin Berry, Founder, SATTE; Michael Duck, Executive VP, UBM Asia; Yogesh Mudras, MD, UBM India; Pallavi Mehra, Group Director, UBM India and Jime Essink, CEO, UBM Asia. SATTE witnessed several exciting partnerships and announcements that ushered in new trends in the industry. Visitors at the signature expo saw a number of features, including a special pavilion of 10 startups, as well as a live show at ‘Colors of SATTE’.
Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism, India, said, “Tourist arrivals from India in 2017 grew by 31.4 per cent. Participating at SATTE has helped us continue our efforts to build on our existing relationships.” This year, SATTE also engaged its exhibitors and visitors to pledge for sustainable tourism under the unique I-Pledge initiative, where participants pledged to conserve natural reserve, respect and save wildlife, say no to plastic, smart waste management and travel responsibly. Over 32,000 pledges were registered. G B Srithar, Regional Director, South Asia, Middle East & Africa, Singapore Tourism Board, said, “SATTE enabled us and about 30 of our Singapore travel and trade stakeholders to interact with participants to exchange views and ideas. Our theme for 2018 is ‘With Passion, Forging New Possibilities’. The expo was the first major travel and trade platform which showcased Singapore’s new, unified brand ‘Passion Made Possible’.”
ENGINE OF GROWTH
The show hosted two networking evenings in association with feature destination Mauritius and feature attraction Madame Tussauds for the travel and tourism industry. At the inaugural ceremony, Yogesh Mudras, MD, UBM India, said, “The industry itself has been growing at an unparalleled rate. This is evident from the very fact that the country is now ranked 40th in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index in 2017, a huge leap of 25 places from 2013.”
Bo Keun Choi, Senior Officer, Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific, World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), said: “Globally, we crossed the 1.3 billion-traveller mark this year. The industry expects a growth rate of 7 per cent in coming years. India is one of the leading countries with almost 16 per cent contribution to the industry.”
On the success of SATTE, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog said, “Statistics show that more tourists visited Singapore and Malaysia, but the truth is that India is a long-haul destination. An estimated 97 per cent people come to India by air and the average stay is 14-20 days – one of the highest for travellers around the world. And that’s where an exhibition like SATTE becomes significant with its reserves of ideas and thought leadership.” One of the key features of the event was the conference held on all three days of the expo. The sessions of the conference touched on topics such as – ‘How to realise effective collaboration between stakeholders for sustainable tourism?’, ‘How can we achieve the successful journey to 2030?’; ‘Visa Reforms & Tourism Growth’; Travel Technology; MICE, Cruise Tourism and Niche Tourism, to name a few.
Karan Anand, Head, Relationships, Cox & Kings Ltd., said, “While destinations will continue to determine the kind of trips one wants to take, one cannot ignore that ultimately immersive experiences will take precedence over destinations. In the coming year, travellers will seek experiences that are defined by their personality, interests and style, most of which have been evolving over the years but will find a definite pattern as we move towards 2018. We believe that SATTE 2018 reflected these trends. It has always been one of the key exhibitions that Cox & Kings participates in India. We have been participating in SATTE for the last 16 years and have found it a very productive investment. We showcased our brands and introduced interesting itineraries.”
Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head, Leisure Travel & MICE, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd., said,” “We were delighted to be a part of India’s largest B2B travel road show. Our team focused on addressing various travel agents at the event. It was a platform for us to showcase Thomas Cook as a tour operator, a strong promoter of the cruise business and also to increase our network of PSA and GCP network. Since we have launched our latest products for the season, we showcased our range of cruise and land holiday products. We pride ourselves with the fact that we have a bandwidth to cater to all segments of travel – from Ultra Luxury to Value Budget travellers; which we showcased at the exhibition.”
Meanwhile, Puneet Kumar, Senior Manager, Market Development (India), Hong Kong Tourism Board, said, “We participated in the event with an intent to create networking opportunities for both HK stakeholders and the Indian industry. “In the next three years, we aim to steadily increase the number of Indian leisure travellers coming to Hong Kong, especially those aged between 25 and 45.” Komang Mahawira, Deputy Director for Indian Market, Ministry of Tourism of the Republic Of Indonesia, stated, “We presented Bali as a popular, value-for-money and safe destination for Indians. Currently, Indonesia is taking more aggressive initiatives to promote its 10 new destinations beyond Bali. Indian market is very important for Indonesia.”
