Inside OTM: Asia’s Largest Travel Show
OTM 2018 opened its doors to thousands of travel partners between January 18th and 20th in Mumbai. Cox & Kings is the official information partner of OTM for the next three years. While TravHQ will devise their Technology Track with innovative sessions, panel discussions, and skill development workshops. This ‘largest’ international gathering allows participants to interact with tourism boards and connect with like-minded travel bloggers and influencers. And so I was thrilled to be here! On January 19th, I reached the venue at 9.30 AM and after, obtaining my badge from the information desk, headed straight to Grande Hall.
At 10 AM, the blogger’s speed networking session began, and one after another, potential collaborators came and met me. In a matter of sixty minutes, I got the opportunity to speak with ten or more luxury and travel partners. 50 International Tourism Boards, 21 Indian State Tourism Boards, 1,200+ sellers, 45 National Tourist Organisations, 300+ hosted buyers and over 15K trade visitors took part in OTM this year.
While I had the pleasure to meet organizers from Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt, South Africa and other countries, I also interacted with the delegates of HP, Maharashtra, Nepal, Bhutan, Gujarat, MP, Karnataka, and Jammu and Kashmir from India. It’s a recorded fact that OTM gets more participants as compared to other travel shows in India. (Almost 80% of the trade visitors prefer OTM over other shows) And Mumbai being the largest market for luxury and domestic travel in India considerably contributes towards making OTM a success.
An example of that is the presence of Indian NTOs, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Maldives, Nepal, New Zealand, Peru, Romania, Rwanda, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand, and Turkey tourism boards at this forum. OTM 2018, a gateway to India’s largest travel market, also allowed me to meet some of the esteemed travel and corporate bloggers such as Sujata Tawde, Laxmi Sharath and Ajay Sood. These bloggers inspire you to excel! Those attending OTM 2018 must visit the vibrant, artistic stalls in the inner hall exhibiting the best of global tourism boards.
Very interesting! I was at SATTE 2018 and had a similar experience:)
Interesting event and you enjoyed a lot.
Thanks for sharing your experience.