Messe Berlin unveils plans to debut in India next year with ITB India
Messe Berlin said it will be organising the inaugural ITB India in 2020. The three-day business-to-business travel trade show and convention will take place at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Mumbai, India, from April 15th-17th next year.
The show is expected to bring together key travel industry leaders and buyers from cities across India, and international exhibitors from the MICE, leisure and corporate sectors. ITB India will also have a Hosted Buyers’ Programme that will cater to buyers from first, second, and third tier cities in India.
The Indian travel industry is expected to be valued at US$56 billion by 2020 with UNTWO, the World Tourism Organisation, predicting that there will 50 million outbound travellers by then.
ITB India will be a major opportunity for national tourism organisations, travel, and hospitality companies to be part of this dramatically expanding market opportunity. “In recent years we have given the ITB brand an increasingly international dimension. From a global and regional perspective, India is a vast source market for the travel industry with a huge growth potential. We are delighted that ITB India will in future complement the trio of ITB Berlin, ITB Asia and ITB China, making it a quartet and strengthening the global ITB brand,” said Christian Göke, chief executive of Messe Berlin.
“Having successfully run eleven editions of ITB Asia, it is logical for us to progress to the next frontier of travel in Asia. India represents an extremely promising market with a growing purchasing power among travellers from the region. We are optimistic that ITB India will be a prominent platform for attendees from the MICE, leisure and corporate sectors to come together to further grow the Indian travel market,” said Katrina Leung, Managing Director, Messe Berlin (Singapore), the organiser of ITB India.
Of the buyers at ITB India, 50 per cent are expected to focus on leisure travel, with MICE and corporate travel buyers making up the remainder with 25 per cent respectively. Almost a third of all buyers at ITB India are expected to have a purchasing power of more than US$1 million. C-suite level and key decision makers are expected to make the bulk of buyers present at ITB India with 70 per cent of them from this segment. 86 per cent of expected buyers at ITB India will also be from the western and northern parts of India.