Moscow gears up for crowds of Indian tourists
The Outbound
Travel Mart (OTM), India's major travel trade show focused on outbound travel,
was held in Mumbai from 8 to 10 February 2013. The country's leading tour
operators, tourism authorities, hotels, airlines and other players of the hospitality
industry took part in the show. A half of them are travel trade professionals from
most Indian states and almost every region of the world. According to the OTM
organizing committee, more than 760 companies from 34 countries took part in
the show last year.
This
year marks Russia's sixth appearance at the OTM. Deputy Head of the Moscow City
Committee for Tourism and Hotel Industry Mr. George Mokhov stated that the
decision to take part in the event was made because India is exceptionally promising
market for our country. "Not less than 12 million Indians travel overseas
annually. The flow to Russia is growing rapidly, too. Moscow alone received 35
thousand Indians in 2011 and 47 thousand in 2012. And it's not just the elderly,
who used to study or work in Russia during the Soviet period, but also the
young generation, keen to receive education in our country", he said to RATA-news.
According
to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service's breakdown for 2012, the
tourist flow from India to Russia has tripled since 2008. Most Indians consider
a trip to Russia as their first step to Europe. "They see Russia as a
European country with distinctive history and culture. Indian tour operators
mostly offer standard itineraries including 3-4 days in Moscow and 5-7 days in
Saint Petersburg. Such trip might cost about $1400-1500 per person. We get
positive feedback and the demand is growing", said George Mokhov. As per his
statement, Russian tourism authorities has been marking Indian tour operators' interest
towards our country's regional destinations as well as combined tours across Russia
and Central Asia to Western Europe.
As
tourists, Indians get to be very peculiar, especially when it comes to food. In
order to meet their needs, the Moscow Government is planning to train hotel
staff and set up more catering facilities including those on the way from India
to Russia. "We have extensive plans in this regard. For now, it's developing
well, as we predicted. It reminds of a similar situation with Chinese tourist
flow, but obviously in smaller scale For this year, the Moscow Tourism
Committee, plans a number of familiarization trips for Indian tour operators
and journalists", said George Mokhov.