Canadian Tourism Commission encourages Indians to visit Canada January 9, 2012

[(INDIAN)]

Canada's tourism marketing and promotion agency, the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), will hold a road show to encourage Indians to travel to Canada. The road show, called ‘Focus Canada – India', will be held 13 March to 15 March 2012 at Fairmont Jaipur, India. It should be noted that Indians need to apply for a Canadian visit visa before travelling to Canada.

It is expected that 50 Canadian organisations involved in the tourism industry will participate including Provincial Tourism Boards, tour operators, hotels, lodges, attractions, etc along with 60 Indian organisations. The idea is to set up a platform to facilitate networking and interactions between the Canadian and Indian tourism industries.

In addition to Mumbai and Delhi, CTC is also looking to expand their activities to cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and Amritsar.

“As most travel agents and tour operators in India are based in metro cities, we thought to organise our event at a city where the Indian buyers can stay away from their hometowns, and network,” said Derek Galpin, Managing Director of CTC China and India.

CTC aims to promote Niagara Falls and Toronto, along with other destinations like British Columbia, Monte Rio and Ontario. Galpin stated that the CTC expects a 10 percent year-on-year growth in tourist arrivals from India totaling 135,000 tourist arrivals in 2012. In 2010, Canada received 129,000 Indian tourists. It is expected that this number will be exceeded in 2011; There were 122,000 Indian visitors from January to October 2011.

Visitors from India and from other countries that need visit visas will need to apply for a temporary resident visa prior to traveling to Canada.