World Travel India 2004 To Host ASEAN And SAARC Inter-Ministerial Summit

In an effort to augment intra-regional tourism, Express Travel & Tourism, India’s travel business magazine from the Business Publications Division (BPD) of the Indian Express Group, and UK’s Kinex Log International will be conducting an inter-ministerial summit for tourism ministers from the Asia Pacific and SAARC regions at the forthcoming World Travel India (WTI) 2004.

WTI is the largest travel exhibition - the first of its kind to be held in India from February 05-08, 2004. Apart from the summit, the event would comprise of a conference, an exhibition and an award ceremony.

As India is advancing towards becoming a future world economic power. Tourism forms a large and important segment of that pie. In that regard, the primary focus of the ministerial summit at WTI is to highlight the importance of synergising the facilities that each country has to offer, and will discuss ways and means of transforming them into revenue for the respective countries. The countries invited to the ministerial summit are Hong Kong, Mauritius, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Seychelles, Maldives, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Laos, Myanmar, and Brunei.

Through this endeavour, WTI aims to enhance the current tourism market in the ASEAN region and tap the untapped growing potential of the travel industry.

The event is supported by the Ministry of Tourism - Government of India, along with The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) and the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI). The event will be attended by the crème de la crème of the Indian tourism fraternity and is expected to attract active participation from the global industry.

The summit will bring about:

• A tremendous opportunity for all the ASEAN and SAARC countries to showcase their tourism potential to the international travel media and tour operator community.
• Exchange value added products for trade between countries.
• Discuss matters of yield enhancement.
• Develop inter-country travel and tourism relationships.

The platform to be set up will also leverage the travel trade from all sectors of the industry to exchange their product expertise and transform the same into profitable yield for their respective countries in a truly international business forum.