ENIT-Italian State Tourist Board has created a training programme for Indian travel agents. The training programme will be conducted in October this year in Mumbai and Delhi.

According to Salvatore Ianniello, Representative India, ENIT, the day long class room style programme will have 30 participants in each city. "We wanted to start this training programme in December last year and had the modules ready but had to postpone it for various reasons. The training programme in Mumbai and Delhi will be a test project and later we will conduct the same in other cities," informed Ianniello.

According to Ianniello, so far the year has been very good for Italy in terms of arrivals from India, especially MICE traffic. He informed that the tourism board will continue to focus on the promotion of Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy and Puglia regions in the Indian market. "Our strategy is to first present the Indian market, its potential and requirements, to industry players from these regions in order to educate them and follow it up with FAM trips for Indian travel trade to offer first hand experience of destination and products," stated Ianniello.

With regards to Indian Tour Operators Council for Italy (ITOCI) which was formed last year to promote Italy as a mono destination in Indian market, Ianniello informed that there have been no additions to the Council. The council members are Kuoni, Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings, Ezeego1.com, Kesari, Mercury, Sahara Global and Cosmos and Globus with ENIT as the ninth and permanent member of ITOCI. He informed that ENIT is in the process of organising an ITOCI meet sometime end of September 2010 in Tuscany.