A three-day international tourism fair styled “Eastern Bank Travel Mart 2014” concluded yesterday in the capital, amid huge turnout of the visitors.
With a smiling face, most of the exhibitors claimed that the visitors’ turn out seemed to be higher than the previous year although they could not give any exact figure about the visitors.
However, a section of participants expressed their dissatisfaction over the comparative turnouts of the visitors.
Airliners ranked top in getting on-spot booking unlike any other participants at the fair.
It was noticed that the participants were trying to create a sense of urgency among the visitors for pre-booking, by offering attracting discounts in product prices and services at the fair.
The fair, specially, succeeded in grabbing the attention of the potential customers who are planning to visit foreign countries.
Discounts on domestic tickets sum up to a few hundred Taka while discount on tickets on foreign trip makes up around a few thousands Taka, which allured most the visitors more towards outbound tourism, said Kamrul Islam, assistant general manager (public relation) of United Airways.
He added: “The gathering of so many companies is to promote their products and services by informing the interested visitors and the fair does not fall short of doing so.”
The fair overwhelmingly met our expectation as Malindo Air got near to a hundred ticket bookings, said Mizan Rodzi, a deputy director of Tourism Malaysia.
“We have come to the fair with only one discounted product but we have already generated close to 50% of the product’s yearly sales,” said GM Saklayen Selim, a marketing executive of Tune Aviation Ltd, a Bangladesh GSA for Malindo Air.
Bangladesh Biman Airlines, being a partner of the fair, has also given a special and exclusive discount only for the participants, said an official at its stall.