Peru targets MICE from India

Apart from Machu Picchu, Peru has a lot more to offer Indians, says Luis M. Cabello, Economic and Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of Peru, New Delhi.

Peru is among one of the most sought after longhaul destinations for Indians, and the tourism department and Embassy of Peru is leaving no stone unturned to create the right buzz about the destination. “We are participating in trade shows in India, so that we are in the market. After that, we are going to have training sessions, seminars as well as direct B2G meetings. Instead of doing big seminars, we would do more of door-to-door marketing and reach people who excel in Latin America, especially Peru. We are planning to do a lot of business in India, organise Fam tours for trade and media,” said Luis M. Cabello.

Despite being a long-haul destination, Cabello insists that they have seen a good growth in arrivals from India to Peru. “For the last three years, since my commercial office is working here in India, the numbers are always increasing. In the first year, we grew almost 80 per cent and now in 2016 we grew almost 10 per cent. I hope this year will be better than the previous year,” he added. One of the biggest obstacle in growth for Peru is air connectivity, but they are working towards it. “We have been in touch with some companies. It’s a long flight from Latin America to India and vice versa, and we are working to improve this. We need to have connectivity to Europe or the United States for sure. When we started doing business a few years ago, we only had a few companies doing flights to Latin America. But now, everyone wants to come to Latin America as it’s a new market. Long back, the scenario was same for China, but now China is our best market. Earlier people had no idea about Peru; but we are now doing things correctly. Now, a lot of people want to go to Peru,” Cabello revealed.

He added that they had some companies visiting Peru because of seminars and conventions. “If big companies like Cisco are preferring Peru, there is a reason. We have good facilities, hotels, good convention centres and also Machu Picchu,” he claimed.