Indian Tourism Targeted

Indian travel companies should promote Northern Ireland as a tourist and business destination.

That's according to NI Tourism Minister Arlene Foster who has encouraged travel representatives to consider Northern Ireland in their schedules.

The Minister was visiting Mumbai as part of an Invest Northern Ireland trip this week as part of a 26 company-strong, trade and investment mission to India.

Arlene Foster addressed an audience of over 50 key representatives from the travel trade, including partner airlines and travel writers, at a Tourism Ireland event in Mumbai.

The Minister said: "Northern Ireland recognises India's increasing tourism potential.

"The United Nations World Tourism Organisation has identified India as one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets of the next decade.

"Our aim is to attract a share of the eight million Indians who holiday overseas each year," she said, noting this figure is set to rise to over 50 million by 2020.

"Tourism Ireland's office in Mumbai has spent its five years in India developing tourism industry links with the aim of growing the 300,000 Indian visitors that already travel to the UK annually," she continued.

"While London has become one of the most popular destinations for Indian travellers, Northern Ireland must capitalise on the presence of its vibrant and long-established Indian community," the Minister said, noting that over 2,000 such people currently reside in NI and a further 1,500 are in employment.

"It therefore makes good sense to target those Indian tourists travelling to the UK and encourage them to include Northern Ireland as part of their trip."

(BMcC/KMcA)