OTOAI and ETOA to sign historic partnership at WTM to bring Indian buyers to MAMA 2015

ETOA, the European tourism association, is forming a new partnership with the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) to cooperate on the promotion of the UK and Ireland’s visitor offer to the Indian market.  A Memorandum of Understanding will be signed on ETOA’s stand at the World Travel Market London on November 4th 2014.

The main subject of the MOU is OTOAI’s support of ETOA’s March Marketplace (MAMA) business networking workshop, taking place on 16th-17th March 2015 in London.   The first day of the B2B workshops is dedicated to selling the UK and Ireland, followed by a day dedicated to selling London.  

Guldeep Singh Sahni, President of  OTOAI  said: “ It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the signing of an MOU between ETOA – the leading trade association for tour operators and suppliers with business in European destinations and OTOAI – a national, not for profit organisation comprising of India’s leading outbound operators, NTO’s, airlines and overseas suppliers wishing to do business in India.

Our two regions have a long history of political, trade and travel links and we also have excellent flight connectivity. Europe and UK are very strongly represented in India by their various tourism boards already but signing an MOU with ETOA to promote MAMA 15 and UK with Ireland to begin with to our almost 300 active members, who collectively would influence travel business decisions globally to the tune of around 15 million USD, is an excellent initiative.

We feel that mutual cooperation between ETOA and OTOAI would be immensely beneficial to the membership of both associations and MAMA 15 would showcase a multi layered destination experience in UK & Ireland to Indians who already have a fondness for and a pre-disposition to choose the UK for work, leisure and higher education. The benefits of the new transit visa regimen for UK with effect from December 2014 should also push up short term and transit traffic, which can have pleasantly surprising results on a destinations visitor economy.

I congratulate ETOA on this initiative and wish your team all success in our future joint endeavour.”  
  
“India is an origin market of enormous importance to us” said Tom Jenkins, CEO of ETOA. “More than 1.8 million visitors come from India into Europe and this is predicted to grow at a compound rate of 7% in the near future. The affluent Indian consumer is becoming more used to travelling over here and more comfortable exploring what Europe has to offer.

How does there UK and Ireland fit into this boom? At first it seems quite problematic. The UK, in particular is losing market share and appears to have real difficulty in competing with a mainland Europe that can offer a huge variety of experiences on one visa. 

But there are no two countries on earth that have the relationship that the UK and India enjoy. More and more people in the UK understand and appreciate India. People in India see the UK with a unique level of comprehension and enthusiasm. This relationship is bound to intensify and broaden.”