TravTalk India Online Magazine
The UK is favoured destinations for Indian travellers this summer and the ease in visa process during peak travel season is fantastic, says Shuja Bin Mehdi, B2B Manager, VisitBritain.
Nisha Verma
Shuja Bin Mehdi, B2B Manager- India, VisitBritain, is ecstatic about summer travel to the UK this year from India. “April to July has always been the peak travel season for Indian visitors to the UK. We hope that this year is not going to be any different. We are going to break all the records. In May, we had the King’s Coronation, followed by the Euro Vision Song Contest in Liverpool, where we had performers from across Europe and the world coming to the city,” he added.
Ease of Visa
The visa process for UK has eased to a great extent. “We want to thank our partner UK Visa and immigration for doing a fantastic job. Last year was a bit challenging due to some understandable reasons. Still, last year saw 2.8 million visas issued for the UK globally, out of which one-fourth, about 700,000 were given to Indians, which is the highest for any country in the world. We have seen very good numbers from January to March. We are hopeful to break all records of 2022 and 2019 this year. Currently, the visa processing time is 12-15 working days and I hope it continues,” added Mehdi.
Trade ready
VisitBritain is set to organise its sales mission around year-end. “We are planning a sales mission towards the end of the year. It is subject to participation from the UK industry, who are excited about the market and want to meet the travel industry in India. The trade will soon hear about our plans to have a destination Britain India event sometime in November. We are excited about hosting our UK Partners back in India again,” he shared.
“We would like our travel trade partners, customers and clients in India to come to our channels, VisitBritain.com as well as our Facebook and Instagram pages to get inspired and find more reasons to travel to the UK now,” he suggested.
