TAFI team travels to Turkey to tout tourism
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The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has teamed up with the representative body of Turkish Tourism to promote bilateral tourism between India and Turkey. The Turkish India Tourism Council (TITC) convened for a four day meeting in Turkey last week to give trade representatives firsthand knowledge of the tourism potential in the country. During the visit of the TAFI delegation, both the organisations signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining the development objectives of their partnership. The key goals are to enhance tourism exchange between the two nations, to contribute to industrial and technological collaboration between the enterprises and economic institutions of both countries, and to coordinate jointly in collecting the data in relation to tourism, technological cooperation and investments to the mutual benefit of the partners.Moving forward, the Tourism Council will operate in the form of two National Divisions, one in India and another in Turkey, and the members of the Council will meet in alternating years in Turkey and India.Ajay Prakash, President of TAFI and signatory to the MOU stated that in spite of close to 14 million tourists who traveled out of Turkey last year, India got barely 10,000. “Our countries share a number of similarities in culture, values and cuisine… We need to make a concerted effort to tap the outbound Turkish market and TAFI will take the lead to create greater awareness of India in Turkey through seminars and road shows.”In order to see that this is done, educational familiarisation trips to Turkey will be staged for TAFI members who are actively promoting outbound tourism in order to give them an opportunity to see the destination for themselves. The first of such tours are expected to start in August this year, with a five to six night educational trip at a highly subsidised rate. Turkish Airlines is looking to expand its footprint across various Indian cities and is expected to partner actively in this venture.This will further support promotional efforts by Turkish authorities which have already held roadshows in various Indian cities as the tourism board seeks to attract greater numbers of Indian tourists and gain a significant share of the burgeoning outbound market.
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