India ranked 4th among all overseas markets for the USA excluding Canada and Mexico, with 1.26 Million total arrivals in 2022. The latest figures released in February 23 revealed over 2 Lac Indians traveled to the US, showing continuous growth in visitor arrivals. India is an important market for Brand USA and America and JACKIE ENNIS, VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL MARKETS, BRAND USA talks with VISHAL KASHYAP, MANAGING EDITOR, and AVIATION WORLD MAGAZINE on all the key topics including enhanced flight connectivity and more. Excerpts…

How has been year 2022 in terms of tourist arrival?
We are in a post pandemic recovery yet. One of our key challenges is air connectivity between the United States and all over major target markets. From an Indian point of view ,we are actually very pleased with the air connectivity. We have such great non -stop direct routes and connectivity and some new flights on Air India. We are only hopeful that will increase even in 2023-24 with the purchase of the new planes. We also have India to the US connectivity through Europe and through the Middle East and through the pacific.

Could you share number in terms of Indian arrivals into the US?
In 2022, India was ranked 4 in international overseas arrival into the United States excluding Canada and Mexico. That’s hugely significant as we had 1.26 million Indian visitors in 2022 which includes all category types of arrivals from India. This is only 15 % down in numbers in comparison to Pre-Pandemic arrival from India in 2019. Indian students in 2022 are the No. 1 source of visitors to the US from India which is really significant.

Any specific segment of travellers from India to be focused upon?
We value all of the segments from India and in our mind as I said students are important obviously for educational establishments because they generate the family and friends visiting. Its usually the leisure travellers (VFR) and also increase in the business traveler. Those are all really important segments.
In 2022 (Jan-Dec) we had 71 % of our people came for leisure, 19 % was students and we had 10 % for the business. The other thing was that 1.25 Million which was very marginally down with the highest peak which we had touch in 2019 was 1.47 million visitors. That to in 2021 first quarter we don’t had any commercial flight which started in March 2021 onwards. Despite that we had V-shaped recovery with the Indian arrivals.

What is the response of recently added Mumbai-SFO flights and from the Bangalore-SFO Flights?
The response to these flights has been really positive. There is a high demand and certainly of the 46 flights that Air India has into the United States, 16 of them are those to SFO. So that speaks to the popularity I think probably from the leisure, from business and from an educational point of view.
Any more connectivity between the two countries can we see ahead?
Definitely, I think United Airlines is hoping to do new direct flight but the issues is the ongoing Ukraine war and the flight overfly Russian airspace. We anticipate though hopefully soon the conflict is resolved and that flight will be able to increase the both in frequency but also new routes. So, there was one route going to start from Bangalore to Seattle with United Airlines and Delhi to Seattle by American Airlines but due to ongoing war plan is on hold.

What is your emphasis for marketing Brand USA in India?
Our biggest emphasis for India is that we want to generate business across the country. Brand USA represents all area and regions of the United States. Our intention is to promote the diversity of all of the small cities and towns and coral areas as well. We do that in number of ways by educating and informing our travel agencies and tour operators which we have seen a hike in growth in luxury products with unique experiences. So, our education process is really focused around those very unique opportunities and experiences by having various adventure and tourism activities. This time, we have brought our 25 partners in the sales mission and for many of them this is the first time they are coming to India because they recognize the potential of the market.

Any specific plans for promotion of Brand USA in India?
We definitely want to work with some of the new technology platforms and their target market will be the United States. Understanding that post pandemic in a very different travel manner scheme , understanding that there is a huge difference between the way Indians use to perhaps travel to the US now and that’s been transformational. We have seen the growth in FIT traveler and there is kind of more sensitive around the fact that they want to have their own unique experience and travel independently. To be able to engage that audience I think we have to start inspiring on a consumer level in a very different way but then also have the ability to have our travel trade and travel agents be able to sell and promote those types of destinations. So their product knowledge is really important to us and our emphasis will be on giving confidence to sell those individual products in a way that they can make money and create different type of experience with the Indian traveler.

Any progress on the US Visa timeline?
It’s getting better and the good thing is that there has been massive acknowledgement of this issue. The Ministry of External Affairs which manages Visa has said that India is the country which has massive visa issues apart from Mexico which is border country. They have more consular staff than have ever had issuing visas in India. They have brought in more staff from the US and other consular offices to focus on India as the demand for Visa from India is very high. The wait time for appointment has come down from 3 years to 8 months which is even coming closer on regular basis. We anticipate that its getting better as they are putting hundreds of thousands of new appointments in the system every day. As per the US embassy report anytime approx 3 million Indians are having US visa and by 2023 they will increase it to 4 million visas for Indians.