Indian arrivals to USA on steep growth trajectory
Representative image
Brand USA, a perfect example of public private partnership for the global tourism market, is betting big on India market. The reason for such confidence lies in the fact that Indian arrivals to USA has consistently been growing. Indian arrivals to USA from 615,000 in 2010 to 1.17 million in 2016 are telling how steep the growth is. “There is a very big interest and excitement for the India market in USA travel and tourism industry. We are looking for numbers to increase and they have been increasing. Currently, India is ranked at 11th position in terms of global arrivals and number 6th in spend and I do hope that India will be among top 10 source market in the next 2 years. Indians spent $13.6 bn in USA in 2016. The average length of stay is around 19 days and normal holidays are around 14-15 days,” Suzana Shepard Durini, Manager, Global Trade Development, Brand USA said on the sideline of Brand USA’s 6th India Travel Mission in New Delhi. The Mission comprised of 51 delegates representing 37 U.S. companies, the largest Mission so far.
Earlier this year, Brand USA launched the US-India Travel and Tourism Partnership year, led by the US Department of Commerce's National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO). The NTTO forecast a 72 per cent increase in arrivals from 2015 through 2021.
Talking about the segments, Durini said that FIT is really growing. “In the east, we have a big group market and this is now changing to FIT. We have seen a lot of growth in people going for experiential travel, self drive, adventure, national parks and going to live like a local and these are on maximum increase. The 10 year multiple entry visa has really helped. We want everyone to come to USA 2-3 times in a year,” she said.
She also informed that the total number of Indian student studying in USA is around 200,000. “They stay there for 2-3 years. VFR earlier was going and staying with family. Now, this trend is changing as people prefer to go on exploring the destination. We have now bleisure, VFR, pure leisure, MICE so everything is mixed now,” she added.
Replying to the success of B2C campaign, she informed that the campaign runs throughout the year in 12 markets. “We will be focusing more on music next year. We also have the similar kind of promotion for music what we had for National Parks last year. There will have a lot of music elements in our consumer campaign next year. It will have music, pop and urban culture and urban experiences,” she informed.
When asked to comment on President Trump’s proposed statement on withdrawing governmental support from Brand USA, she confidently said that Brand USA is going to be there. “We have a lot of support in the government. We have a lot of bipartisan support in the Congress. The Congress knows that tourism is an important sector for the State and it helps and supports the economy. We are very confident that we are going to have bipartisan support on Brand USA. Over the past 4 years, Brand USA’s marketing initiatives have helped in bringing more than 4.3 million incremental visitors and benefitting the US economy with more than $30 billion in total economic impact,” she informed.
Brand USA was created by Congress in 2010, began operating in 2011, and has had long-lasting and overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, across all travel sectors. It has been funded through visa fees every year and Congress voted in 2014 to reauthorize the program until 2020.
Taking note of the recent developments, Brand USA has shifted its goal of welcoming 100 million visitors from 2021 to 2024. “We have actually shifted our goal of 100 million to 2024. However, we are going to exceed the visitors spend goal set for 2021. We are very happy that we are achieving the visitor spend target,” she informed.
Elaborating on the marketing activities, Durini said that Brand USA is organizing a mega FAM for 30 Indian stakeholders in October. “We are going to have very qualified and high level people coming to US to know more about USA’s diverse tourism offerings. Moreover, we are going to have new B2B program ‘Namaste India’ in Delhi and Mumbai due to demand from US side. We are working on the format for this event which is likely to be held in February or March next year,” she informed. Other marketing activities include educational training programme, multi city seminars, webinars, and monthly newsletter amongst others.
T3 also talked to some participants at the Mission to gauge the overall sentiment. Visit California, a private non-profit organization, had the largest presence at the Mission with 12 partners. “We have doubled our arrivals numbers in last 10 years. In 2016, we welcomed 319,000 Indian visitors and we expect this to grow by 10 per cent in 2017. We are projecting 45.8 per cent growth from India by 2021. So, we will have nearly half a million Indian visitors by 2021 which is truly exciting,” Anette Kaiser-Rott, Director of Europe & India marketing, Visit California, said. She further informed that Indian travelers stayed an average of 19.6 days on their trip spending $2,257 each. “We are witnessing a good increase in VFR, leisure and MICE segment. Moreover, we are brining CEO’s from Convention and Visitors Bureau from California in November to India to further understand the need of the Indian market,” Kaiser-Rott informed. Talking about the marketing initiative, she said that Visit California launched California STAR app few months ago to educate travel trade partners.
Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PHLCVB) was quite excited about the growth from the India market. “We are really excited as we have seen really good success. We just started actively marketing and promoting Philadelphia in 2014. The response has been great and India is currently 4th largest source market with over 51,000 Indians visiting Philadelphia in 2015. We are able to do this without a direct flight. We witnessed a 3 per cent increase in arrivals in 2015 over 2014 and our projection suggest 7 percent increase between now and 2020,” Julie Coker Graham, President and CEO,PHLCVB informed and added that the average length of stay for Indian traveler is 2 days and average spend is US$ 1400 per person. With the help of Sartha Global, we have been able to position ourselves in India market,” Graham said.
Another participant San Francisco Travel Association (SFTA) was also quite enthusiastic about the results they are getting from India. “We welcomed 183,000 Indian guests in 2016, reflecting a 4.7 percent growth over 2015. We are expecting this number to grow to 197,000 visitors in 2017, making India the 8th source market. By 2020, India will be at number 6th position with 238,00 expected Indian visitors,” Antonette Eckert, Director-International Travel, San Francisco Travel Association, said. Talking about the focus segment, she said that SFTA has been targeting the high-net worth travellers from India. “We have also enhanced our focus on the incentive and corporate travellers from India. We are well assisted by Sartha Global Marketing to train agents on our incentive travel offerings,” Eckert said.