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| IATO eyes pact with Wockhardt for rural tourism |
| Jayajit Dash / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar Apr 20, 2009, 00:18 IST |
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In a bid to tap the huge potential offered by the medical tourism segment in India, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), the apex body of tour operators in the country is mulling a tie-up with Wockhardt, one of the leading healthcare chains.
Both IATO and Wockhardt are thinking of a collaboration to prepare specific tour packages to boost medical tourist arrivals in India.
“Wockhardt has approached IATO to prepare some exclusive tourist packages for the inbound medical tourists in the country. There is tremendous potential for medical tourism in India as the country is a very cost-effective destination for high quality medical care”, Vijay Thakur, president, IATO told Business Standard.
Apart from catering to medical treatment, IATO’s medical tourism packages would ensure that the tourists are rejuvenated at spas and also enjoy sight-seeing of some of the exotic tourism destinations in the country.
Thakur pointed out that IATO is also promoting the medical tourism segment of India in a big way in its roadshows in different overseas destinations. IATO which is going to organise roadshows in the US, South America and a few European countries soon is set to make special presentation on opportunities offered by the medical tourism segment in India.
“Apart from US and UK, India can attract overseas tourists in the medical tourism segment from Dubai and a few other countries in the Gulf region. There is also a sizeable NRI (Non-Resident Indians) population spread across many countries which is keen on availing of medical treatment from the doctors in India”, said Thakur.
With the Union tourism ministry launching the Visit India 2009 campaign, IATO was organising roadshows abroad to promote India’s tourism destinations in the overseas market and to boost international tourist footfall in India.
IATO has already organised roadshows in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, UK and Ireland. More roadshows were in the offing in US, South America, Japan and South Korea. On the foreign tourist arrivals in India, Thakur said, “India’s overseas tourist arrivals were mainly hit by the economic meltdown and to an extent by the Mumbai blasts. We expect foreign tourist arrival to pick up by the third quarter of 2009-10 and now that the star hotels in India have announced a cut in their tariff, we expect more overseas tourists.”
Besides, IATO is also in the process of training professionals engaged in tourism and hospitality sectors in the country. The training to the professionals is imparted in the form of seminars and workshops which are conducted in various locations of the country. IATO is organising two to three seminars every month and each seminar is attended by 60-70 participants. IATO has already trained over 800 professionals so far and the tour body plans to train about 1,000 more professionals by the end of 2009-10.
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