In a bid to spread awareness and attract Indian travellers, the Scandinavian Tourism Board along with Denmark, Sweden and Norway interacted with travel trade fraternity recently in New Delhi followed by Chennai and Mumbai. The three Scandinavians nations are still largely unexplored by Indian travellers. Earlier connected via Dubai; Air India has launched a direct flight from India to Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Elaborating on the traffic from India to Scandinavia Mohit Batra, India Representative, Scandinavian Tourism Board informed that as per the latest data available nearly 3.5 lakh room rights have been consumed by Indian travellers in the region last year.
“We have registered a consistent growth of 10 percent year-on-year from this market. We saw almost every segment of tourism whether it is small group, family groups, leisure and fix departures grew for us. While leisure segment is dominating, a growth of 20 percent is expected in Incentive segment.”
“With the start of direct flight we are looking at somebody like MakeMyTrip going from four fix departures this year to 20 fix departures in next year,” he added.
Elaborating on the roadshow he said that the Scandinavian nations are promoting themselves in three Indian cities New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai for last nine years. “Apart from the workshop we are inviting them to experience our destinations. In an attempt to enhance their (trade partners) knowledge about these destinations we have launched a website this year which has a lot of information for Indian trade partners.”
The cities like Kochi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad would be the next line of cities to promote Scandinavian destinations and thereafter Pune, Chandigarh and Ludhiana.
Sweden has a lot of potential and so much to offer to the Indian travellers which undiscovered as of now says Ruth Dolla, Project Manager India, Visit Sweden “We have registered 18 percent growth from here in 2017 as compare to 2016. We had 176000 bed nights in 2016 from January to December.”
“After the launch of direct flight I believe this number will go up. The direct flight has actually helped to build a very strong bridge between Sweden and India.” As she informed, Delhi Mumbai and Pune are emerging as the top cities for Sweden. While elaborating on her interaction with travel agents she said, “I am expecting to meet around top 300-400 tour operators in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.”
According to Flemming Bruhn, Director of Visit Denmark there has been a double-digit growth in number of travellers visited Denmark from this part of the world. “Since Denmark has so much to offer so just to give an idea we have launched five different routes for Indian market. Each of these routes takes five to seven days to visit Denmark. It could be more or less with an option to pick and choose whatever suits to the travellers.”
