PATA Travel Mart to boost India
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More than 1,200 delegates from over 86 countries have arrived in Hyderabad, in India’s Andhra Pradesh state, for the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s (PATA) annual Travel Mart.
Over 850 tourism sellers and 350 buyers meet over the four day event, and the event is hoped to serve as a booster to India’s tourism economy and MICE market, which despite recent growth still lags behind its Asian neighbours in tourism arrivals. The Times of India reported that with 5.1 million tourists coming to the country last year, India currently ranks only 11th Asia Pacific in terms of tourist arrivals, and 42nd worldwide. And while host state Andhra Pradesh is the most popular destination for India’s domestic travellers (largely due to religious pilgrimages to Tirupati), only 750,000 international visitors arrived in 2007.
“Most international tourists have heard of only Hyderabad, that too as a modern city and an IT hub. The rest of the state is a huge village, as far as they are concerned. We hope to change all that by selling all the tourist spots in the state and increasing the number of international tourists to 10 lakh (1 million) by the next year,” said Jayesh Ranjan, Managing Director of the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Council.
Organisers will be hoping that the PATA Travel Mart 2008 allows the tourism industry to see a new side of both India and Andhra Pradesh.
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