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Addressing the audience, Dr Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson, FICCI Tourism Committee and Chairperson & MD, Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, remarked, “FICCI supports travel startups, digital tourism and IT-based infrastructure for the travel and hospitality sector. This forum will throw up many interesting outcomes which we then share with the relevant industry for their further understanding and possible implementation.”
Dr Suman Billa, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, said, “One of the biggest challenges that India has to live upon the potential for tourism is to become digital enabled. The entire way we relate to travel, the way that our consumer patterns are evolving is directly linked to the enormous amount of IT enablement that is happening. On the other hand, travellers have become extremely choosy in terms of travel options and types of accommodations, which is possible due to digital explosion. In order to keep yourself one with the digital revolution, you need to firstly, look at how you can move some portion of your business to the digital segment. Secondly, offer something that not everyone is offering through their digital platforms. And lastly the room aggregator, which are digital marketing engines to promote and get visibility. There is also a significant amount of cross-selling that’s happening which is contributing major value in the eyes of a customer.”
FICCI along with Avalon Global Research also launched a knowledge Report ‘Travel 2.0 – The Next Generation of travel’.
Deep Kalra, Chairman & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip, stated, “Today 60-65% of tickets in India are sold online and it has happened dramatically and it’s not going to stop. Online Travel Agents (OTAs) have got about 40-50% share in the market of this total pie, out of which 15% is acquired by the airlines. In terms of market trends, domestic holidays are ferociously increasing in India and it’s expected that the current 22 million travel size in India will rise up to $20Billion by 2030.”
Highlighting the current trends and importance Hari Nair, Founder & CEO, Holiday IQ mentioned about Holiday IQ’s video review feature for our travellers, providing them an live experience of a place, hotel or a destination.
Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager, TripAdvisor India, working in the digital space mentioned the ways through which technology helps a customer to make choices within exploring and existing offers in the travel segment.
Abhishek Rajan, Vice President & Head-Travel Marketplace, Paytm talked about the methods through which Paytm has become a part and parcel of a consumer.
Indiver Rastogi, President, Global Business Travel, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, said, “The whole model of booking online has changed and thanks to companies like MakeMyTrip who initiated this trend. We as industry people have altered our services based on the trends and the demand of our consumers because the new age traveller wants to do everything on their own.”
Vishal Suri, Managing Director, SOTC, “All of us are using smartphones in our daily lives for most of our needs today. The rise in the local startups and bespoke travel agencies focused on these themes has truly highlighted a sea change in the digital travel space.”
Neerja Bhatia, Vice President, Etihad Airways, Indian Subcontinent, said, “Today people globally are quite tech savvy. Earlier families would take one domestic holiday in a year, but today an average middle-class family takes at least minimum long haul holidays in a year. It demonstrates a lot of exposure, experience and knowledge through media and travel.”
Siddharth Dabhade, Head of Industry, Google India, said, “Due to the availability of end to end technology for the new age consumer, there has been a sudden increase in the rise of smartphone purchases as its satisfying the consumer needs. More so, viewership on travel videos has increased helping the consumers to explore a plethora of activities to look upon, clearly indicating technology to be the next big priority within the travel sphere.”FICCI also conducted its maiden initiative aimed at travel start-up ‘Travel Tech Launchpad’, a platform to encourage innovation and growth of travel startups, on the last day of the summit.
Source: travelnewsdigest.in