Spain Keen To Woo Indian MICE Market

Lakshmi Subramanian - Chennai

Spain Tourism Board recently conducted their four-city roadshow to foster tourism relations between the two countries. The roadshows were conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, with an aim to target the international MICE segment in India and to draw this segment to major Spanish cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. In 2003, 18,566 meetings were held in Spain with a total number of participants touching three million in 199 Spanish cities propelling Spain to the second position gloabbly for international meetings, ahead of UK, Germany and Italy. Speaking on the occasion, Paloma Notario, director, new markets, Spain Tourism Board, mentioned that "The performance of the MICE industry has been encouraging and Spain is gearing itself to move quickly to capture a greater share of the Indian MICE market. The objective of these roadshows is to make Spain the most preferred MICE destination in the world and India will play a key role in its growth."

The main advantage of visiting Spain is the Chenghan visa. At present, Spain has 17,000 establishments supplying 1.4 million rooms, with 1163 luxury four and five-star hotels. Their main markets are UK, Germany, France and USA. According to WTO, Spain was the second main tourist destination in the World in the year 2003 after France. According to the Paloma, the year 2004 saw about 85.6 million travellers visiting Spain, which means an increase of 4.6 per cent from the previous year. The number of visas issued increased by about 25 per cent in the year 2003-2004. 2003 saw about 17000 Indian tourists as compared to 12000 in the year 2000, an increase of 42 per cent, added Paloma.

When asked about the profile of the Indian market Ignacio Ducasse, Director, Spain Tourism Board said, "Indians look at Spain as primarily a leisure destination. Spain is strongest in the leisure segment and ranks number two in the business and incentive market. But we offer much more than just leisure. Tourists visit Spain also for culture, sports and business tourism. We have a good mix of both business and pleasure. We want to create more awareness in India as it is a fairly untapped market segment and they are the highest spenders."

Spain caters to about 402 international flights from all the major airports. However, there are no direct flights from India to Spain or vice versa. "We are a planning to launch a low cost Spanish airline from Spain to India. In addition, there is a plan to set up an office in India, which will prove to be beneficial for both countries. At present the Singapore office is in charge of the Indian market. We are also planning to do a separate marketing plan for India with a bigger budget by the year 2006," added Ignacio Ducasse. As for the current tourist arrivals the officials did not have figures specific to the Indian market but said that the situation was quite encouraging and is growing quite steadily.

Talking about the specific initiatives to woo the Indian market Vien Cortes, market analyst, Spain Tourism Board said, "Initially imparting vital information is the key. Other things will follow suit. Secondly we are trying to establish an embassy in India. We have also arranged for tie-ups with travel agents to recommend Spain as leisure cum business destination to Indian tourists." When asked about the online booking system, Ignacio Ducasse added that at present they do not have an online booking system per say. However, there is a list of travel agents and hotels with links on their website which tourists can utilise to their advantage. With all these initiatives it is evident that Spain tourism is keen to add India to their list of major markets.