India’s biggest travel trade show kicked off today at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Goregaon, Mumbai, witnessing more than 1,000 travel-product sellers from over 50 countries participate at the show.

OTM 2015 is a three-day exhibition and conference of the travel industry featuring the largest country pavilions from Dubai, Oman, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Nepal, Philippines, Macau, China, Argentina, Japan, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Jordan, Bhutan, Czech Republic, Romania, Taiwan, New Zealand and Mexico.

The biggest state participations are from Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, Kerala, Daman & Diu, Karnataka, Punjab, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra.

Some of the other big sellers at OTM are Taj, Best Western, Sri Lankan Airlines, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Adlabs Imagica, Ark Travels and Heena Holidays.

Apart from leisure travel, OTM has a substantial segment on Business Travel and meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) related travel, which is being presented as a show-in-show called BTM.

As part of the event, Kuoni, a leading service provider to the global travel industry, has partnered with OTM for the first time to organise a Knowledge Series on the Future of Tourism. The three-day series will focus on analysing the future trends, especially in the context of markets in the developing world. Speaking on the collaboration, Rajeev Wagle, managing director Kuoni India, said: “Through Knowledge Series 2015 by Kuoni experts, we hope to bring forth a highly informative and unique opportunity for industry leaders to contribute to a constructive dialogue on the future of sustainable tourism.”

The OTM-Kuoni Knowledge Series is devoted to mastering the challenges and opportunities within the travel industry. It will have sessions by Kuoni India's experts to discuss best practices and what future expertise and research could bring to new age travel especially for the fast-growing emerging markets. The event will bring together some of the most influential thinkers to discuss new approaches and will serve as a direct exchange between the various businesses in the tourism industry and will facilitate the exchange of ideas and insights.

The knowledge series will focus on the topics of Corporate Travel, MICE and Luxury Travel.

Moreover, OTM’s Top 100 Travel Producers Award is being instituted from this year. The award gives travel producers in India an annual opportunity to celebrate success and, more importantly, to highlight the important role they contribute to the travel industry.

The awards will be presented every year during the OTM in February at Mumbai - India's largest source market for outbound and domestic travel. The nomination to the award is restricted to travel producers based in India, with high buying potential of Outbound or Domestic products for their Indian clientele. - TradeArabia News Service