India is now the UK’s biggest ‘BRIC’ market, in terms of visitor numbers.
According to new data released by VisitBritain, UKinbound and the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) at the India Market Seminar, which is being held at London’s Lord’s Cricket Ground today, India contributed a record 375,000 visits to the UK last year, up 11% compared to 2012.
And visitor expenditure is growing at an even faster rate. In 2013, Indian visitors spent GBP441 million (US$751m) in the UK, 32% more than the previous year.
The Indian tourism market to the UK is fairly evenly spread, with 130,000 holiday visits, 105,000 business trips and 111,000 VFR (visiting friends and relatives) trips made in 2013. And VisitBritain said its research suggests that the number of annual visits to the UK from India has the potential to reach half a million by 2020.
“China grabs the headlines but the Indian market is one of our most loyal and the largest in volume of all of the BRICs,” said Keith Beecham, acting CEO of VisitBritain.
“Indian visitors have a higher propensity to travel beyond London, so they are a hugely valuable market in terms of spreading the regional benefits of international tourism across the country. We need to find ways of boosting visitor numbers further and this jointly hosted seminar will help the UK industry learn more about exactly what makes Indian visitors tick,” he added.
Tuesday’s seminar will focus on two of the most important European destinations for Indian travellers – the UK and Switzerland. In 2012 there were 218,000 visits from India to Switzerland, and Swiss Tourism will use Tuesday’s the event to share its strategy and explain how Switzerland has been able to achieve such strong inbound numbers from India in recent years.
Guldeep Sahni, president of the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) commented; “With the new government in place, which has promised to prioritise the Indian tourism industry, and the rupee becoming stronger, it is time to invest in India and also attract visitors from India. Indians are high spenders, and with more families moving towards the upper middle class segment, there will be an upward trend in the number of travellers from India.”
The Lords event was held just a few weeks before the Indian cricket team commences its summer tour of England.
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