The 20th edition of South Asia’s leading B2B travel and tourism trade exhibition SATTE achieved immense success. Captains of the industry present at SATTE 2013 were unanimous in their opinion that SATTE has been a great networking and business transaction platform for the sector. The exhibition was inaugurated by Union Tourism Secretary, Parvez Dewan. “SATTE has become an institution; a well founded one within India and its neighboring countries,” he said in his inaugural speech. He further added that, over the last 20 years, SATTE has been promoting India’s tourism and it has evolved as a truly global exhibition in this part of the world. 

Agreeing with Dewan was Alla Peressolova, Head of the Silk Road Programme and Fairs Programme, UNWTO, who read out a special message by Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General, UNWTO.  “In the last two decades, SATTE has grown from strength to strength becoming one of the leading networking forums for the tourism sector in South Asia. With the contribution of more participants than ever before, I am confident that SATTE will maintain its reputation. I look forward to UNWTO’s continued collaboration with SATTE,” Peressolova said and added that UNWTO has collaborated with SATTE to promote tourism in this region. 

Sajid Desai, Group Director, UBM India, also shared his perspective on SATTE 2013. “SATTE 2013 has successfully achieved its goal. We welcomed 7,419 unique qualified buyers and sellers, excluding repeat buyers and unregistered walk-ins. We had 590 exhibitors from 35 overseas countries and 23 Indian states who met, engaged and interacted with buyers and attendees from over 43 countries and 74 cities of India,” Desai revealed. He also shared that altogether SATTE 2013 received 9,764 appointment requests from visitors and exhibitors. “The feedbacks received from exhibitors and visitors are quite positive and encouraging. Both exhibitors and buyers appreciated our initiative of launching online B2B pre-scheduled appointment scheme,” he said. 

Indian states have also lauded SATTE’s contribution in tourism promotion. “SATTE is an extremely vital and beneficial platform for us. This event has helped us showcase our destination to the international markets. We believe in brand visibility and that is what SATTE provides us with. We will continue to participate at SATTE and support it in the years to come,” Sanjay Kaul, Managing Director, Tourism Corporation of Gujarat, said. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra also echoed the similar opinion. “Madhya Pradesh always sees SATTE as an opportunity to draw private investment to strengthen the hospitality infrastructure of the state. Through SATTE, we are hoping to witness a jump in international arrivals to our state. We want to increase our popularity through this medium and we look forward to participating in SATTE 2014,” Raghwendra K Singh, Managing Director, Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation, said. Dr Jagdish Patil, Managing Director, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), feels that SATTE enables MTDC to reach out to   the international as well as local travel trade and urges them to promote and sell destinations of Mahrashtra. 

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