TravTalk India Online Magazine
While M!CE and weddings have always been a focus in the past for Spain Tourism, it will zoom in on FIT leisure and luxury travel from India going forward. To connect with the trade, it is hosting the Virtual Spanish Travel Show from December 2-3.
Hazel Jain & Nisha Verma
The Tourism Office of Spain – Mumbai will organise a two-day virtual roadshow for the very first time on December 2-3, 2020 with 20 Spanish suppliers. The Virtual Spanish Travel Show will see a mix of regional tourism boards, hotels and DMCs. Elisa Robles-Fraga, Director, Tourism Office of Spain (Turespaña) in Mumbai, India, says, “In normal circumstances, I would have had the pleasure of meeting everyone face to face during our roadshow, but due to the pandemic, we are meeting online. The focus is on restarting tourism post COVID into Spain fromIndia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.”
The show will have individual private meetings between buyers and sellers, streaming of product presentations and videos in the auditorium, plus some interesting panel discussions and several contests and quizzes with prizes to be won.
FIT leisure and luxury travel
The Tourism Office of Spain in India is still studying the situation to plan its strategy for 2021-22. “I can assure you that this market is important for us, and that is the reason we organised this virtual travel show. M!CE and destination weddings have always been our focus and we will continue to promote them as soon as the crisis situation improves. Of course, FIT leisure and luxury travel will continue to be our focus segments for the
India market,” she says.
Tourist visas subject to EU regulations
Raul de la Rosa Machado, Counsellor, Embassy of Spain, New Delhi, discusses a possible change in documentation and re-establishing air connectivity.
Will there be any change in documentation for Indian passport holders?
Not much has changed in terms of procedures and documents as of now. Unfortunately, India is not among the countries allowed to visit Spain for tourism. But, as soon as the situation improves, more countries will be added to the list and I am sure India will be back.
Is there a need for heath certificate for tourists?
That might be an option, as the EU might ask for some additional health requirements. However, currently, the health requirements as they were before are still in place. This also covers having new decisions contained in the international health regulations, which includes COVID. Another thing is the requirement of RT-PCR tests, which is a national-level decision and Spain has recently introduced that only for higher risk countries. India is not among those high-risk countries because of the low per capita infection rate here. Hence, negative PCR test certificate is not needed currently for Indian residents who arrive in Spain.
Are there any chances of air connectivity soon?
We hope that as soon as the situation is normal, some air connection is re-established – possibly Air India’s Delhi-Madrid-Delhi flight and an air bubble can be formed. Currently, it’s the Indian authorities who do not allow international commercial flights except through air bubbles. Between the embassy in Delhi and the Consulate General in Mumbai, the total Schengen visas issued in 2018 were around 61,000 and 68,000 in 2019, which was an increase of almost 11 per cent.
