Society for Incentives Travel Excellence India Chapter (SITE India) has announced a new one-of-a-kind event –The India Incentive Day for the members of the Indian travel trade fraternity to network, learn and gain experience for enhancement of their Incentive Business. The maiden edition of the India Incentive Day is scheduled to be held on July 24, 2020 in New Delhi. The SITE India Chapter President Sanjeev Joshi including the Board Members of SITE India Rajeev Kohli, Nitin Sachdeva, Vikas Suda and Vishal Yadav were present during the media briefing held in Gurugram recently.
According to the organizer, the format of the ‘India Incentive Day’ will be different from other tourism industry events in India. The core conversation will be with the experts covering four diverse areas such as Risk Management, Current Technologies& Digital Activities, Lifestyle & Modern Living and Destination Marketing. The design of the event will be very interactive with two key note sessions, and a Black-tie charity sit-down dinner in the evening.
At the outset of the announcement of this event, Sanjeev Joshi, President, Site India Chapter said: “This is for the first time a specialist event focused on ‘Incentive Travel’ will take place in New Delhi other than the ‘SITE Global Conference’ which we brought to India in the year 2015. The objective of the event is to create a space where all segments of inbound and outbound Incentive travel can come together to discuss strategies for growing the size of the market as well as the skill enhancement.”
“Also, by bringing all travel professionals at the same platform, our purpose is to educate and help the fraternity members to be competitive in Incentive Business with international body,”
added Joshi.
“At this event we are not targeting quantity but the quality participation with excellent content. The maiden show of the India Incentive Day will be in New Delhi, however we don’t intent to keep it here only, it may be organized at the offbeat destinations as well, informed, Former Global SITE President, Rajeev Kohli.
‘Incentive’ travel (I in MICE) is the fastest growing sector of the Business Events industry with the highest per capita spend and the widest supply chain. Accounting for about 7 percent of all Business Events activities, the Events Industry Council’s Global Economic Impact Study (2018) estimates the ‘Incentive Travel’ industry to be worth around $75 billion globally.
“Incentive Business is going to survive for the future”, said Joshi. “Rest of the businesses may be taken away by the online players but the Incentive business still going to be with the travel agencies as it needs a lot of man power, intelligence of human to manage the event because the movement is bigger,” he added.
Further adding to this, Nitin Sachdeva, Board Member of SITE India Chapter said that a huge percentage of MICE business which is a culmination of Meetings Incentive Exhibition and Conventions comes from ‘Incentive’ segment into India. This shows the potential of Incentive Business in MICE segment.
Speaking about the association, Rajeev Kohli said: “SITE is not just a traditional association; even globally we are super specialist focusing only on the business of Incentive Travel. Pillars of SITE are networking, education and advocacy. So we have very strong educational platform.”
It offers two certification courses as well, one is an entry level certification called Certified Incentive Travel Specialist (CIS) and Certified Incentive Travel Professional (CIP) is for the experienced. The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) is the only Business Events association dedicated exclusively to the global incentive travel industry.
In addition, SITE India will be separately organizing a much focused one day event only meant for undergraduate students studying tourism. “We aim to fill in a gap of MICE education in current university level tourism courses. We hope to do this event in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism,” said Joshi.
“It will be an attempt to enhance the knowledge and sharpen the skills of the students of tourism and hospitality as it has been noticed that the current curriculum doesn’t explain all segments of tourism including MICE and Incentive Business,” concludes Joshi.
