German National Tourist Office (GNTO) has set its sight on driving larger leisure outbound into Germany and is undertaking a theme-based marketing promotion with a tagline “Culinary Germany-More to explore” as part of its core global marketing theme for 2018. “Our current promotions are concentrated towards strengthening Destination Germany’s image as a travel destination across different travel groups,” Romit Theophilus, Director Sales and Marketing said. This development comes at a time when Germany has registered a double-digit growth in Indian tourist numbers for the first half of 2018, compared to the previous year. For the period from Jan- Jul 2018 the country received 547402 visitor overnights, making for a growth of 10.8 per cent as compared to the last year.
The current trend of growing Indian leisure numbers certainly bodes well for the large German travel trade contingent, currently in India on a three-city roadshow. The Discover Germany Roadshow, an annual event for the GNTO was recently flagged off in the capital, followed by a roadshow in Bangalore and then in Mumbai. The roadshow saw the participation of two new German Partners, Europamundo Vacations and a&o Hotels and Hostels, apart from the usual participants.
“Year on year we have been noticing an increased interest from the Indian Travel trade in Destination Germany. This can be witnessed by the overwhelming participation received at our roadshows,” Romit Theophilus said. He noted that there had been a tremendous growth in the “overall perception of Germany as a favoured leisure destination by the travellers.” “This is backed by the overwhelming increase in the number of registrations on the Web-Based Destination Training Module. Additionally, the forecasted data from airline seat load factors and our overnight statistics prove that Germany is fast becoming one of the most sought-after leisure destinations for Indian travellers,” he added.
The roadshow which was conducted in New Delhi facilitated interactions between German partners and the Indian travel trade on latest offers, highlights and attractions for the Indian travellers.