Role Of Conventions In The Indian Travel Trade

Jyoti Koul - New Delhi

Sample This : The 5th International Conference On Gay and Lesbian Tourism will be held from March 22-24, 2004 in Canada to a capacity audience. Why? Because in an otherwise sluggish, tentative and even shrinking travel industry, gay and lesbian vacationers have not slowed down at all. In fact, in an online survey of 510 gay and lesbian travellers, taken October 1-15, 2001 (i.e. post-9/11), respondents indicated they'd be taking as many vacations in the coming 12 months as in the past 12. For 66 per cent of them, that means three or more vacations per year. In fact 63 per cent indicated no decrease of travel spending and 28 per cent indicated they will actually increase their vacation budget over the coming year. So, tourism industry globally has always reasons enough (read to home in on) to organise conventions and conferences. Back home, it’s no different. The tourism industry in India has even more reasons to host conventions. With countless associations and tourism bodies, travel conventions have created a season of their own.

V N Dalmia

However, while conventions like gay and lesbian one become the forum for the presentations and discussions on new technologies for gay travel marketing and distribution; emerging niches-within-the-niche such as gay honeymoons, senior travel, student travel, and family travel are opening up new marketing opportunities. On the other hand, travel conventions in India in most of cases become more of a venue to curse and crib about the government’s policies and decisions than to celebrate their efforts and innovative prospects. But these conventions are important enough as they really act as an updating experience.

Apart from being a platform for interaction, an annual convention is a major forum for interacting with the trade, governments and opinion leaders on the events affecting tourism. It encompasses major issues and developments on the tourism scene in India and global events affecting tourism to India. These conventions provide a platform for candid exchange of views between tourism professionals. It is a gainful interaction with other tourism professionals.

The conventions address major relevant issues both at the national and international level. Industry issues come to the fore at the national level. This helps in formulating and fine tuning the business strategy. The fairs being held concurrent to the conventions provide additional insight for new products of development.

In other words such conventions take up the issues and voice the concerns of the industry and therefore they become a learning experience. They help to keep abreast of what is happening in the industry and around it. However, the deliberations need to be result oriented and the real success of a convention should thus be measured in terms of the achievement of its theme. However, realising that a convention cannot produce quick fix solutions, it should set up a deadline and follow up aggressively on a particular burning issue. Therefore, by the next convention, all that was discussed in its previous one should have been achieved. Do not linger on subjects and brood over them time and again without any progress should become the new mantra.

It has been noticed that the objectives of domestic travel conventions are usually about promotion of tourism in the country. Thus a convention may be defined as a multipurpose exercise serving as a platform to highlight issues, achievements and innovations besides creating a network with the other stakeholders in the industry. It also takes care of information dissemination as the particular association tries to bring forward many internal issues and objectives besides putting forward the opinions of its members and the industry.

According to V N Dalmia, chairman, Tourism & Civil Aviation Committee PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "Most of the national associations in India hold conventions. Conventions are useful by themselves only to the extent that they provide an opportunity for industry members to network with each other, exchange information and keep themselves updated on the latest developments. The most useful purpose of conventions is to inform and lobby the government about policy problems and changes required. If conventions have state government functionaries and central government functionaries present and attempt to inform them of problems, they serve a useful purpose and add value indirectly for companies."

The latest trend is that many such events have graduated from being synonymous with interactive forums to educative forums. Many attend the conventions for the networking opportunities, to build alliances and develop destination events, package tours, and increase independent arrivals, which is an indirect value-add to the business.

An integral part of conventions is the marketing innovation competitions. The aim of these competitions is to encourage creativity and quality of videos, posters and brochures according to the international standards. As Pawan Khanna, managing director, Rainbow Travels (India) Pvt Ltd puts it, "These conventions serve as a platform to bring people together recognising the ‘bonding’ factor which is important in any industry. Secondly, at such forums you generate new ideas, innovations and interact with a host of other industry members. So in my opinion a convention has two important objectives – interactive and educative."

But many feel that though these conventions are aimed to be effective tools for business promotion, the purpose gets diverted. Jatinder S Taneja, managing director, Travel Spirit International said, "These conventions are supposed to be a platform where you get access to important officials. But in India we have too many conventions round the year and the very purpose gets lost somewhere as only few conventions manage to do justice to the event. So the only purpose they serve is of enhancing public relations and providing a full-fledged party time."

However, while taking into consideration the real value addition of these conventions to the business of either travel agents or tour operators, one needs to understand the basic difference between conventions and marts. Sometimes marts are combined with conventions. "International associations like PATA usually hold marts along with annual conventions. Such marts add great value to the business of a tour operator because companies attend buyer-seller meets and add to their business. However, marts combined with conventions by Indian associations have so far not been successful. Marts alone organised by others in India have so far been moderately successful at the best," said Dalmia

He added, "In some cases, the greatest benefit from conventions in India has been the educative role played by them for government functionaries. They do not add direct value to the business of the travel agent or tour operator."

On the other hand there is no denying the fact that they add value of a ‘different kind’. The business deals might not get crystallised but the networking, product knowledge and information participants take home is indeed a value-add.

These are the platforms for networking with industry players like suppliers, service providers and ground handlers. One gets a chance once a year to meet, greet and exchange information with them.

Therefore, one third of the trade believes that it is enough that burning issues are picked up for discussions during conventions. This, they believe, helps the trade to have more value-added inputs on marketing tourism overseas and within the country besides giving a perspective on how the trade could improve upon the tourism product of India.

But, deep down somewhere, members expect much from conventions with respect to government policy matters because the associations can play a major role in making the industry’s voice heard by the Central and state governments, airlines and hotels and other related stakeholders. In fact, major industry issues have been taken up in conventions. In the past, they have addressed issues like the sudden and unprecedented increase in monument entrance fee, the decision of the Supreme Court for conversion to CNG fuel mode of all commercial vehicles, amendments to provisions in service providers in EXIM Policy, recognition by railways for group bookings etc. Such issues were raised and adequate solutions were provided. The members look forward to such forums for taking up collective issues of the tourism industry.

Of late conventions have acquired a special significance because of the continuing decline in tourist arrivals in the country. They have highlighted the reasons for the decline and the corrective measures that can be taken. According to Major Murli Dhar, president, Cosmopolitan, the basic aim of any convention has to be the following:

A) To take stock of the activities and achievements of the year of any association or organisation.

B) To discuss major problems of the concerned industry by inviting experts from a cross section to throw some light on the issues and problems.

C) It should provide an opportunity to members and representatives of other segments of the industry like the private, public sectors and at times from overseas delegates who come and exchange their views to learn and exchange information about developments and trends.

D) It should help in conveying the message to the authorities from an open platform.

However, one of the negative trends in conventions has been that most of them are becoming tools for individual publicity. Some publicity seekers take advantage of the opportunity and try to propagate what suits their interests and company. This is a tremendous setback to the image of the association. The given platform should not be used to exploit the association for the personal benefits.

In order to promote tourism, the associations, through their conventions, should aim to get international participation in terms of overseas industry members and the media to create an impact of Destination India in the overseas market. This kind of an addition can create a positive impact on the flow of tourist traffic into the country from abroad. Apart from inbound tours, it will also have significant reaction on outbound tours and domestic tours.

Prime Time For Indian Tourism

Ashwini Kakkar, CEO & MD, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, believes that India has just started tapping its tourism potential

On the priority list of industries which the First Planning Commission brought out, the tourism industry was ranked 267. That was about one notch above the development of light houses. Likewise, in the ‘50s there were a mere 15,000 tourists.

From such humble beginnings, the tourism industry with an inflow of 2.5 million visitors at present accounts for US$ 2.8 billion as revenue and it contributes the second largest amount of money to India’s foreign exchage.

There is much to congratulate ourselves. However, in the international scene, we are still to exploit our potential. Consider what India has to offer – it has incredible natural wonders like the awe-inspiring Himalayas, a huge coastline, healing sciences like ayurveda, flora, fauna and much more. It is therefore a little sad that we are ranked 47 in the top 60 destinations of the world.

Of the 700 million tourist arrivals the world over, we get 2.5 million. Compare that with the figures of other tourism entities – Europe gets 400 million, East Asia Pacific region 112 million, China 31 million tourists and even Thailand welcomes 10 million. Even the average spend per tourist per day in India is below other countries. Whereas we get only about US $ 40, in Singapore it is US $ 300, and in Thailand it averages US $ 100.

One of the reasons why we lagged behind or got a late start was because of the our socialist approach till the early ‘80s. In that stream of thought, tourism was associated with elitism. That it could generate employment was yet to be realised. To the policy makers, the primary focus was the foreigners who were perceived to be rich people who occupied hotel accommodation, filled in airline seats, frequented five-star bars and restaurants and brought in foreign exchange. The whole of Indian tourism in that period was tailored to the foreign visitor. Price mechanism was tied to the overseas costs. Consequently, there was a huge expenditure tax on hotel rates, handicrafts and food and beverage.

For the local, travel therefore meant holidays to native places or places of pilgrim interest.

At about the same time, when we were tied to this outlook, our ASEANneighbours like Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong dug in their infrastructure with one eye on the tourism pie. They developed a carefully thought out strategy which was marketed befittingly.

By the mid ‘80s, Indian industry woke up to its potential. New industrial houses cropped up and suddenly there was a whole new class of business travellers who carried along with them a generous travel and entertainment allowance. They were wooed by airlines and hotels with special Club Class seats and Butler services. And then, of course, there was the liberalisation initiated in the early ‘90s and the entrance of global brands into the Indian market.

By around the middle of the last decade of the 20th century, the Indian tourism industry had come into its own.

It was an astonishing transformation on the domestic front too. Compare the figure of 176 million travellers in 1999 from the 60 million in 1990.

And the growth will only continue. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has forecast that the travel industry’s focus is shifting to South East Asia and Pacific from Europe and North America. WTTCalso forecasts a growth of 4.5 per cent over the next 10 years. India’s share is expected to grow at 9.7 per cent and along with it comes 7 million jobs created.

This despite the many crises that periodically hit the tourism industry with the war on Iraq and SARS being the latest.

But such glitches only go on to show the resilience of the tourism industry and its ability to bounce back.

India is entering a phase when the tourism industry will soon be in its prime. Though we have been late starters, with some foresight, focus and a good national tourism policy, a USD $30 billion industry awaits us by the next decade.