Brand USA Newsletter - November 2019

India Office Update

Partners Meet With 820 Local Buyers During Five-day Sales Mission to India

Brand USA hosted its eighth annual sales mission to India, Sept. 22-27. Fifty-five delegates representing 40 U.S. suppliers participated in the mission, which included visits to Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi. Overall, the delegates met with more than 820 Indian buyers and 80 media representatives during the trip.

In addition to interaction with the Indian buyers who are based in each of the three cities on the mission’s itinerary, the delegates were able to expand their marketing outreach by meeting with buyers from other parts of India who came to Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi to meet with them.

Buyers from Bengaluru, for instance, came to Chennai; buyers from Ahmedabad came to Mumbai; and buyers from Noida and Ghaziabad came to New Delhi.

Highlights of the mission included:

  • Phil Lovas, deputy assistant secretary for Travel and Tourism, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Brian Beall, deputy director for Policy and Planning, National Travel and Tourism Office, U.S. Department of Commerce, participated in a B2B marketplace in Mumbai. They also addressed attendees at a VIP dinner that evening.
  • Edgard Kagan, deputy chief of mission, U.S. Embassy New Delhi, India, addressed attendees at a dinner in New Delhi.
  • Sheema Vohra, managing director, Sartha Global Marketing, presented “India Ready” as the focus of an educational session in Mumbai for the delegates on the mission. The talk highlighted India’s outbound travel market. (Sartha is Brand USA’s in-market representation firm.) Phil Lovas also was a speaker at this program.
  • A media day was held in New Delhi on Sept. 27. The delegates met with 80 members of the media, who represented a variety of travel-trade and consumer media outlets.
  • All of the delegates dressed in Indian attire for VIP networking dinners in Mumbai and New Delhi.
  • A morning networking hour was held in Mumbai for the top 15 travel companies based there.
  • Twenty drawings were held for attendees during the trade events. In one drawing, Virgin Atlantic, a Brand USA partner, provided air tickets from Mumbai to New York City.