India launches new e-commerce platform for tourism promotion

New Delhi, July 25 (UNI) The Ministry of Tourism has launched a new e-Commerce platform on its website www.incredibleindia.org with a view to facilitating customers worldwide to communicate directly with agencies, tour operators, hotels and Bed and Breakfast establishment 24 hours a day.

Launching the platform, Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni suggested that among the niche tourism products, medical tourism should be brought on the e-Commerce Platform.

In India, about 1.5 lakh patients arrived from across the globe in 2004 for medical treatment. The medical tourism market in India is estimated at 333 million dollars in 2004, grew by about 25 per cent and is predicted to become a two billion dollars-a-year business opportunity by 2012.

Ms Soni said while it was important to woo more tourists to this country through powerful global campaigns, it was equally important to continue focus on upgrading and improving the quality of infrastructure on ground.

The Minister also gave certificates of merit to 22 renowned chefs on the occasion.

The e-Commerce platform has been developed jointly by the Ministry of Tourism and EVIIVO. The main objective of this platform is to facilitate small and medium entrepreneurs to be on global network to promote and sell there produce online without any committed investment.

www.incredibleindia.org and technology partner EVIIVO will now be offering online booking services for a range of accommodation businesses across in the country, enabling international visitors, currently representing 70 per cent of the site traffic, and domestic visitors to use the new hotel and Bed and Breakfast establishment with live availability search on the homepage and complete their transactions in Dollars or Rupees.

The Ministry and EVIVO's will integrate third party consolidators and multiple partners so that it can offer a truly open platform for all service providers in the tourism industry. Current partners include: www.desiya.com, www.travelguru.com, www.yatra.com, www.ezeego1.com, www.makemytrip.com, www.etoursonline.com, www.indiatimes.com and www.cleartrip.com So far about 4,000 accommodation units by hotels, guests houses, Bed and Breakfast unit have been partnered in the platform and expecting more in phased manner.

Various State Governments like Madhya Pradesh, Asom, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh have shown interest to use this platform to promote and sell there various tourism products.

UNI