Korea Gears Up For A Slice Of The Indian Outbound Pie

Neeti Chopra - New Delhi

With the Indian market becoming more and more receptive and new destinations eyeing Indian outbound, Korea is no exception in taking advantage of the situation. Trac Representations (India) promoting Korea in India is bullish about the new market and has various plans to increase the visibility of this new destination before the onset of the Indian outbound season this year.

Trac Representations (India) Pvt Ltd undertook the overall promotion of Korea as a tourist destination in the Indian market, segmenting and targeting special interest groups with focussed promotions in November 2004. Says Kavi Ghei, director, Trac Representations, "It has been a very short period that we have been on the Korean board. The first stage of our exercise currently is to create awareness on what the destination has to offer. Besides, we will be floating a lot of packages and special fares during the Indian outbound season, which is our main season. We are working closely with airlines on special fares. In addition, we are also looking at organising FAM trips for media and travel agents that have the potential of selling the destination. All this has to be done prior to the beginning of the outbound season so that we are able to attract more tourists from India."

The company is planning to hold roadshows in Delhi and Mumbai during the course of this year. "Roadshows will be organised at places where there can be one to one interaction between travel trade of India and Korea, where they can actually sit across the table and conduct business. The primary targets are ideally those cities where we have the flights coming in and the ones that are the largest tourism generating areas which would be primarily Delhi and Mumbai. The bulk of travel agents are also resident in these two particular areas," explains Ghei. Last year, roughly 50,000 Indians visited Korea. Although for 2005, Ghei is not very ambitious, he is expecting 20 per cent growth in tourist arrivals from India. So far the bulk of traffic that has been going to that country is not leisure, but business-oriented. But leisure is now witnessing reasonable growth. Therefore, the company is primarily targeting leisure and MICE segments.

A lot of the traffic flying on Asiana Airlines and Korean Airlines to West Coast of US fly through Seoul. The company is also tapping this market for a short break showcasing the destination. "We are in conversation with the airlines to introduce special packages. We are looking at providing short breaks in order to showcase the destination," concludes Ghei.