In a bid to promote wedding, MICE and golf tourism in India, the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) recently organised a road show in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru for the travel trade and event organisers. The roadshow witnessed the participation of 15 suppliers from Mauritius. For 2014, MTPA will focus on the young Indian travellers and educate the travel organisers on how to package and sell the destination.
“The main purpose behind this road show is to meet with our Indian trade partners as well as the event planners and organisers who deal in wedding, MICE and golf events. Statistics suggest that Indians between the age group of 18-45 are more likely to travel; this makes our target audience fairly young,” said Vijaye Haulder, Deputy Director, MTPA.
The three metros are MTPA’s main source markets. “Delhi is huge for our wedding segment, Mumbai for honeymoon and we get maximum MICE business from Bengaluru,” Haulder said and added that promoting these three segments will boost visitor arrival numbers.
Despite the economic slowdown, Mauritius is expecting one million visitors from across the world by the end of 2013. Between January and October 2013, Mauritius received 60,000 Indian visitors, reflecting a 7.8 per cent increase in Indian footfall compared to the corresponding period last year. “Our target is to increase the growth rate to 10 – 15 per cent per year,” Haulder informed.
Elaborating more on the Authority’s decision to focus on these segments, he opined that India is one of its most important source markets and with the upcoming trend of destination weddings and organising events abroad Mauritius wants to cash in on that market. Mauritius is looking at welcoming quality travellers wanting to have a destination wedding. “In a year, we host a maximum of 10 high profile Indian weddings. We will continue to work in tandem with the Indian travel trade to create awareness about Mauritius as a wedding destination,” he said.
According to him, 10 – 15 per cent of MTPA’s total tourism revenue comes from MICE, which makes this segment an important. “We have included golf as our major tourism product to attract business travellers and the MICE,” he informed.
MTPA also plans to enter the tier-II cities such as Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Pune and Chandigarh to promote Mauritius as a MICE destination, “These cities have shown positive financial growth and are home to some of the largest business sectors in the country,” he said and added that in 2014, MTPA plans to hold roadshows in tier-II cities.
