India Tourism to be the guest of honour at Geneva Festival 2011

India Tourism will be the guest of honour at the Geneva Festival 2011. The annual festival to be held from August 4-14, 2011, with the pre festival celebrations on July 21, 2011, appoints a country as its guest of honour each year offering the nation an opportunity to showcase its tourism potential. In the forthcoming edition of the festival, India Tourism will avail this opportunity. Geneva Tourism recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ministry of Tourism, Government of India for the same. The festival will provide India Tourism great chance of showcasing the destination to large number of international visitors attending the event. Michel Perret, General Manager, InterContinental Geneva, who is also a member of Geneva Tourism informed TravelBiz Monitor about this development.

Geneva Tourism is also aggressively looking at increasing its tourist arrivals from India. It expects this dual relationship to strengthen tourism between both India and Geneva. “We’re positioning Geneva as a lifestyle destination, hence focusing on attracting the incentive market as well. We will visit India in January 2011 as participants of the road show to be organised by Switzerland Tourism Board,” Perret added. Geneva Tourism also plans to set up a representation office in India by early next year.

Geneva Tourism has also recently introduced free of charge transportation for tourists (applicable for roads and ports) across the city. A special pass is issued to tourists at airports and their hotels. About six per cent of total visitors to Geneva in 2009 were from India and it expects tourist arrivals from India to record a hike of more than 12 per cent by year end. Geneva Tourism is primarily targeting leisure travellers, FITs and MICE tourists from India. Recently, delegates from InterContinental Geneva and Ramada Park Hotel Geneva visited New Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai to interact with the Indian travel trade.

“This visit has helped us understand the needs of the Indian traveller through our interactions with the Indian travel trade. We will now focus on attracting FITs, small groups, families and MICE from India for both the hotels,” highlighted Cypert Schwartz, General Manager, Ramada Park Hotel Geneva. With plans to visit India next year, the two hotels intend to visit Gujarat, Punjab and Kolkata during that visit.

Source=travelbizmonitor