Technology and tourism were in focus at a meeting held on March 6 organized by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), during which speakers highlighted the present and future of tourism. The IAMAI and Incredible India organized this Tourism and Travel Tech Conference under the theme “Shaping the future of Travel in India.” The conference touched upon key aspects of the Travel and Tourism industry such as Building the Tourism Ecosystem, Disruption of Digital Travel, and Technology-enabled Travel experience.
Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Dhruv Shringi, Co-Founder & CEO, Yatra.com, said: “Travel and Tourism Industry has emerged as one of the major contributors to India’s GDP. It is flourishing at a rapid pace and is poised to become a US$50 billion industry over the next few years. In fact, with the growth of disposable incomes and travel expense, India will witness 20% growth in the number of air travelers.”
“It is, however, pertinent to note that the tourism industry is execution oriented hence the operators need to focus on enhancing operational efficiencies in order to capture the opportunities in this industry,” Mr. Shringi added.
Prominent speakers at the conference included Mr. Neeraj Singh Dev – SVP & Head Ecommerce, Thomas Cook, Ms. Ritu Mehrotra- Country Manager India, SriLanka and Maldives, Booking. Com, Mr. Abhijit Mishra-Diector, India and Middle EAST, kayak, Mr. Aloke Bajpai-Co-founder & CEO, IXIGO, Mr. Amit Madhan- Group President IT & E-business, ThomasCook India, Mr. Nikhil Ganju- Country Manager, TripAdvisor, Mr. Sanjay Mohan –CTO MakeMyTrip and Co-Chair, IAMAI travel tech committee, Mr. Amanpreet Bajaj – Country Manager, Airbnb, Mr. Amit Damani,- Founder, Vista Rooms and Mr. Kadamjeet Jain – co-founder, Treebo Hotels
All the speakers were unanimous in their view that for travel and tourism industry to really flourish in India, it is really important that all the stakeholders including industry both offline and online and the government join hands to create an atmosphere or frictionless travel. Tourism and travel industry is one of the biggest employment generators and hence it is important that the bottlenecks are removed at the earliest to be able to contribute to the growing Indian economy.
