Nepal Participates in OTM Mumbai 2018Monday, April 2nd, 2018

OTM 2018 took place in Mumbai, India from 18 to 20 January 2018. OTM is considered to be the biggest and most international travel trade show in India. About 1300 sellers from 45 countries had set up their pavilions in the fair. More than 300 hosted buyers and 15000 trade visitors made business contacts and interactions with the sellers.

India is one of the fastest growing tourism source markets in the world. The number of domestic visits marks more than one billion while the number of International visits registers a whooping growth to 20 million in 2017. India has set a goal of achieving 40 million, from 14.4 million presently, international arrivals by 2020. The number of people within mid-income brackets is increasing each year; and the propensity to travel among Indians is observed growing stronger. The intensive use of IT in travel sector and availability of cost-effective budget airlines have helped to push up the number of departures crossing the frontiers of the country. The year 2020 is expected to observe steeply growing outbound figures of 50 million visits.

Indian market is one of the most potential source markets for Nepal. Among a million International tourist arrivals in Nepal, 160 thousand visitors were from India. The arrival figures from India exclude arrival by land. The number certainly grows considerably if the arrivals from India by land are counted. Nepal can make huge benefits from the potential Indian outbound on one hand and can benefit, on the other hand, by attracting more third-country-tourists who are already bound for India.

In such context, OTM Mumbai was observed with visitors coming to Nepal pavilion with queries and interest on Nepal. Nepal pavilion was beautifully presented with four entrances from four sides. Each entrance was decorated with thematic presentation of Pashupatinath. Nepal Pavilion won the Best Decoration Award in the fair. Nepal bags had been distributed from the registration desk and it had created attraction of the visitors.

Nepali tourism companies got an opportunity to make discussion with potential new business partners and also renew their business ties with the old ones. Nepal Tourism Board and Nepal Airlines Corporation were the main exhibitors along with sixteen private tourism companies as co-exhibitors in the fair.