Published on : Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Subhash Goyal, Chairman, STIC Travels, moderated the session. The panel included other members like Satyajeet Rajan, Director General, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India; Ekapol Poolpipat, Consul General, The Royal Thai Consulate – General, Mumbai; Ade Sukendar, Consul General, Republic of Indonesia, Mumbai; Sudhanshu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt of India; VK Gautam, Principle Secretary, Tourism and Cultural Affairs Department, Govt of Maharashtra.
To quote Pandey, “Today we have a Buddhist population of about 550 million globally, can we target one per cent of this population visiting India every year, which is roughly about 5.5 million. Connectivity is one of the major issues in India which needs to be addressed; this is where we need to take proactive steps. We need to see how we enhance the experiential component of the Buddhist tourists, because they come with lot of expectations, now if the experience doesn’t match the expectations, actually selling a product at times can be counterproductive. The private players have to offer services, ensure quality of services and that kind of experience with which they bring in the tourist.”