While different countries like Malaysia, Australia, India has introduced various offers during the mart, Nepal failed to announce any new package -- apart from Nepal Airlines Corporation's (NAC's) buy-two-get-one scheme in addition to new flight routes -- to attract tourists.
Nepal's flag carrier resumed flights to two Indian cities -- Bengaluru and Mumbai directly from Kathmandu coinciding with the event. "We are providing a ticket free with the purchase of two round-trip ones to both Bengaluru and Mumbai," Saroj Kasaju, the commercial director of NAC, said, adding that it was soon connecting Nepal to Kolkata directly and to Sri Lanka via Bangalore.
Meanwhile, other Asia and Pacific countries came out with special packages targeting potential visitors for the upcoming autumn and winter (summer and spring in Australia and other southern hemisphere countries) tourism seasons.
The tourism authority of Malaysia highlighted its 'Malaysia Year End Sale' scheduled to be held from November 14 to January 3, 2016. Its packages are designed to boost arrivals to the country during the event. "India is a significant contributor to our tourism industry... it is the sixth top tourist source-market for us," Datuk Azizan Noordin, Deputy Director-General (International Promotion) at Tourism Malaysia, said. 770,108 Indian tourists visited Malaysia in 2014.
Similarly, according to Press Release Watch, Tourism Australia recently launched a media campaign in association with its key distribution and airline partners in the primary markets of Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru through its 'There's Nothing like Australia' platform.
People traveling to Australia from India can choose from travel packages starting at Indian Rs 119,000.
A statement said that Tourism Australia had collaborated with Air India to also launch a special offer with fares starting at IRs 58,000 and available till the end of September with travelers having to use the tickets by October 31.
"We organized this even in the Silicon Valley of India this year as our aim is to promote new destinations, strengthen tourism in member-countries and provide an investment forum in partner-countries," Kevin Murphy, the chairman of PATA, said at the inaugural ceremony of the three-day-long travel mart held in Bengaluru.
The 2015 edition of the PATA Travel Mart had 456 travel sellers from 266 organizations and 28 destinations. There were also 242 travel buyers from 233 organizations from around 61 countries.
During the event, Nepal was effectively able to use the platform of PATA's signature event to reach out to its high-end market and clientele. It was highly successful in sending out a message that "all is well", that life was back to normal in Nepal and that Nepal is "Back on Top of the World", Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), said its statement to the press.
The PATA Travel Mart 2016 will be held in Indonesia in 2016.
PATA Vice Chairman Andrew Jones, who was also the PATA Nepal Tourism Rapid Recovery Task Force leader, said that every destination had its own unique selling point and the expo was beneficial for all. "For example, Indonesia, the site of the next PATA Travel Mart, is not aiming to be cheap, but providing value-for-money, which supports PATA's contention when promoting a destination," Jones said.
"We are pleased to see that the recovery of Nepal's tourism sector is going well. There was a very positive response from the travel and trade industry representatives at this event [PATA Travel Mart 2015] to the recovery efforts of the government and industry in Nepal. We appreciate and are happy to learn that a number of recommendations from the PATA Nepal Tourism Rapid Recovery Task Force have been implemented and appear to be working well in helping the tourism industry in Nepal to bounce back," he added.
Cities of the host country India, especially Karnataka, were able to attract the attention of participants with their cultural performances and the warm hospitality.
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