Ask Abhijeet Saxena, CEO, Netcore, how his last trip to Europe was different, and he quips: ?Lots of fun to know a city like Milan with no interpreter/guide around to show the way, and being looted by street urchins by the end of it,? he says. Push him to elaborate on the second part, and he admits he didn?t like being made a fool of. However, Saxena, who is still trying to get over the loss of his euros, takes away lessons from the incident. ?It?s been years that I have been visiting cities in Europe ? known for their heritage, richness and sophistication.? He adds humbly, ?My transit tour turned out to be not only adventurous, but also a learning experience. I came across a key aspect of human life in few hours of an aimless transiting journey.?
And it is not just Saxena who enjoys the aimless short tours while in transit. Rohit Agarwal of Techtribe, the IT entrepreneur with one leg in India and another in Silicon Valley, has many tales to share. A tourist travelling 5,00,000 miles a year for business and leisure, Agarwal now has a rulebook on stop over destinations to make his sweet, aimless jaunts a success. For him an ideal in-transit stop over must be of two days with a day of sight-seeing, and another for him to explore the place on his own. ?And if the stop over is for a few hours only, I would like to be picked up and be dropped from the airport so that I am not stressed out about missing my flight,? he adds. That?s an option to whiling away hours at duty-free shops, diners and treatments at the spa. The stop over, or an in-transit tour ? planned during the short period of time in-between flights ? is of great value to a passenger on an onward journey, giving him an opportunity to experience and rejoice the myriad facets of a new destination, apart from the set itinerary. In fact, Singapore Tourism Promotion Board provides free city tours to transit passengers who are waiting for more than six hours there.
Spain, which has the second largest number of tourists in the world, has transit tourism programmes (Madrid Amigo and Barcelona stop over) with its national carrier Iberia. ?Such tours are mostly planned in conjunction with airports/airlines (like Korea Tourism Organisation with Incheon International Airport and Singapore Airlines with Changi) to make a city trip doable before departure,? says Subhash Goyal, chairman, Stic Group.
With the realisation of huge numbers transiting by, service providers are all for a custom-made luxury experience. Depending on a traveller?s hours at the transiting city, developed destinations like Korea and Amsterdam can offer a range of packages. The places to visit could include a historic Dutch Gouda cheese factory located near the Amsterdam Schiphol airport or a tour to the demilitarised zone between South and North Korea. The locations need to be strong on infrastructure, as no traveller would want to get stuck in a jam on the first street turn outside the port. These trips work well economy-wise too, say watchdogs. ?When we first promoted Nepal, we discovered that the fare to Bangkok via Kathmandu was the same as the fare between Delhi and Bangkok. So, our slogan was ?Visit Nepal free on your way to Bangkok? and we were able to send a few thousand passengers going to Bangkok and make them transit tourists in Nepal,? elaborates Goyal.
Economics of a transit
The logic works well at transiting locations in Europe, standard stop over locations like Dubai and tourism-friendly markets like Korea (reporting a steady 10% jump y-o-y in number of transiting passengers opting for city tours). According to Ju Min Hong, vice president, Korea Tourism, the country had 3.7 million of its transiting tourists opting for stop over tours in 2007 ? up from 3.4 million recorded in 2006. ?For business travellers, one is more keen to include dining and nightlife in the transit time, while a family could be interested in a theme park,? says David Leung, regional director, South and South East Asia, Hong Kong Tourism Board. The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) today helps its visitors with a dedicated in-transit guide to figure out their stop over tours. In another of its initiatives, it has tied up with InterGlobe Technology Quotient, the national distributor of global distribution system Galileo, to offer special discount vouchers of its transit tour to Indian travellers. India, being a special case with 3,17,510 arrivals recorded in 2007 contributing to a steady 70% increase over the past six years, the offer is integrated with the Galileo PNR at the time of booking the Hong Kong segment in the flight itinerary. On till December 31, Indian travellers booked via Galileo are entitled to a 15% discount on the standard tour price.
Hosting approximately 15.8 million visitors per year, including domestic, regional countries and international, stop overs account for nearly 20% in Amsterdam. ?Since the inception of Holland Stop Overs, we have seen a growth of nearly 35-45% each year. Nearly 10% of travellers landing at the airport use the stop over facility. Last year alone, Holland experienced a tremendous growth of incoming tourists to Amsterdam. And tourist arrival from India alone rose by 34%,? says Kris Brandsma, founder and CEO, Holland Stop Overs.
http://www.timein-transit.com is an innovative in-transit travel site based in the tourism hub of Dubai, helping in-transit travellers with online guides to five locations (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Bahrain and Sharjah) in the fast-growing region. Each location is explored depending on how much time one has to spare on a stop over. The site features a detailed airport guide, city highlights for short-stay travellers and hand-picked choices of bars, restaurants and attractions within easy reach of the airport. This is besides helping one find travel advice from on-the-ground correspondents, book flights, hotels and rental car and post one?s tips. ?Today, we know that about 1,500 people everyday have more than eight hours? stop over in Dubai with Emirates. However, we don?t know exactly how people utilise those five to eight hours between flights. This makes it difficult to calculate the size of the market and also the nationalities of passengers,? says Alex Warren, editor in chief, Time in Transit.
Still to check-in
A problem that watchdogs feel in case of stop over tourism is that there are no tabulated figures. There is substantial data on transiting travellers, who may not have a visa to walk out of the airport in the transiting country, or find the time (five hours? stay at the airport) too less to experience a city, or may simply prefer to do duty-free shopping at the airport. Moreover, since the people are just travelling by, not many destinations call them their tourists. ?Largely, the facilities and attractions like a city tour, shopping at the flea market, etc, are towards keeping long-haul travellers amused for some hours or a night, which comes just as any other service from our side,? says Sushil Wadhwa, MD and CEO of Platinum, a company into MICE tourism. Ankur Bhatia, MD, Bird Group, agrees. Calling the in-transit tour business a ?conditions apply? zone, his biggest worry is the visa. The prime drivers of in-transit tours are well-connected airports (hubs for airlines) with on-arrival visa facility. With not many countries, besides Europe, Dubai or Singapore, too keen to extend a welcome hug (read visa) to its transiting passengers, stop over tours may not click in the first place. ?The delayed scene is everywhere to see ? even in India. Having said that, and accepting that in-transit tourism is the next big thing, it calls for destinations to open up in terms of visas. Destinations must also emphasise on stronger infrastructure and include the passing-by travellers in their fold,? he advises.