Spirited India-Scotland connect

Saltire Executive Travel, a Scottish DMC, recently organized a whiskey tasting session for the travel trade in New Delhi to promote Scotland as a destination for whiskey connoisseurs.

Nisha Verma

The event saw a presentation from VisitBritain, where they highlighted the offerings in Scotland and a whiskey tasting session was organised by Diageo.

Speaking on the session, Neil Forbes, Managing Director, Saltire Executive Travel, said, “I think Scotland is a huge destination for Americans and Canadians, but not for Indians, as they seem to focus on London more. However, I think there is a huge market and a great connection with Indian people and Scottish people through whiskey and hence we wanted to promote Scotland through whiskey, which is the way forward.”

Indian market

Speaking on the Indian market, he claimed whiskey is the ideal way to promote Scotland in India. “India is the biggest market for Scotch whiskey and when they drink whiskey they do not know the roots of whiskey. By bringing people to Scotland and making them identify the roots, understand the belief and enjoyment about it, which is in Scotland, it is the perfect thing for this marketplace,” he claimed.

He added they are concentrating on the executive market. “We are looking at anyone who wants to stay, experience history, the whiskey, the bagpipes and everything about Scotland. It is a very small country, but Scotland has brought many things to the modern world and everybody must visit once,” he advised.

Sudeepto Banerjee, Senior Sales & Operations Manager, Travel Solutions, said they want travel agents and tour operators to experience it and then sell the same to the clients. “Everybody wants to do bucket list things such as the Big Ben and Tower of London. They should see all other places, including Scotland,” he added.