Travel / Lifestyle

Thirty countries to participate in SATTE

by Surekha Galagoda

South Asia's biggest Travel and Tourism Expo South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange(SATTE) will be held in New Delhi from April 19 to 22 for the 14th successive year. Thirty countries are expected to take part with half the sellers, among a base of 500 booths, to come from overseas.

SATTE continues to represent the composition of all segments of the travel and tourism industry of this region on a common business platform. It is focused on buyer-seller meets in two different categories such as Inbound Tourism into the region where international buyers meet the sellers from within India and the second category of India Outbound where sellers from overseas will meet the Indian Agents.

To meet International Sellers, SATTE will profile visitors among a large community of Indian travel agents and tour operators from all over India, more particularly from the North. These include New Delhi and the National Capital Region comprising the growing markets of Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad, and the neighbouring markets of Chandigarh, Jullundur, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jaipur and Lucknow.

Apart from exhibiting, international destinations National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) can also showcase their cultural products through food festivals as well as dance and music festivals. SATTE will help co-ordinate such events at partner hotels in the city, to run alongside the exhibition, said a spokesman.

The India Outbound section will comprise NTOs, Cruise Operators, International Airlines, Hotels, Resorts and Tour Operators.

The Travel Industry of Sri Lanka could benefit at this travel mart by meeting the International Agents who promote South Asia and also the Indian Agents who are interested in promoting Sri Lanka. One-hundred organisations are expected to take part as international sellers to meet 3,000 Indian Agents and Tour Operators.

Currently India is the highest tourist generating market to Sri Lanka. As at end December last year 128,370 tourists came from India, a 13.3 percent increase compared to 2005 arrivals from India.

Considering the importance of this event, The Sri Lanka Tourist Board will be participating in this year's event with the local travel industry representatives and the Sri Lanka Conventions Bureau, said a spokesman for the industry.

So far SATTE has hosted over 3,750 tour operators from over 40 countries. They have come from the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and from China, Japan and Australia. The sellers had products from all over India and from South Asian countries.

In 2006, SATTE featured 10 nations with Sri Lanka as the partner country. India outbound is a huge growing market, increasing at an incredible 30 per cent, year on year, estimated to cross 10 million outbound by end of 2007. Another 500 million domestic movements will get converted into international destinations with the increase of airline capacity annually.

The GDP growth of over 9% annually will create more international travellers. Since the GDP is increasing the majority of the Indians are willing to go abroad as tourists to spend their vacation. India also has a growing number of travel agents and tour operators all over the country.

[email protected] 

SriLankan increases flights between Goa and Colombo

SriLankan Airlines is adding a third weekly flight to the popular coastal resort of Goa, moving closer to becoming the first scheduled foreign airline to have a hundred flights per week to India.

Already the foreign carrier with the most frequencies, SriLankan will have 95 flights to 10 cities in India with the addition of seven more flights to Mumbai last month and the new Goa flight scheduled for March 30.

SriLankan has 15 weekly flights to Chennai, twice daily to Mumbai, 13 to Trivandrum, 11 to Kochi, 10 to Trichy, eight to Calicut, and daily to New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.

Head of Worldwide Passenger Sales Manoj Gunawardena said "customer demand for our services to Goa has been steadily building and we are very pleased to offer an additional weekly service.

This not only brings in greater seat capacity on the route but also gives our customers more flexibility in planning their journeys".

Regional Manager India and Maldives, Senaka Fernando said: "We see a large number of Goans taking advantage of our flights to visit Sri Lanka, which is culturally similar, and also travelling onward with us to other parts of the globe.

Our latest flight especially enhances connectivity between the Middle East and Goa via Colombo."