Over the past few years, Sarah and I have been trying things and going places that we’ve never been before. This is both exciting and tense for us because we don’t know what to expect of it. For the past couple of years, we’ve been visiting the OTM travel show in Mumbai regularly.
Unlike other travel bloggers, we are not much into marketing and connecting people across the industry. Hence, it takes a lot of time for our blog to reach its target audience. OTM travel show is our first step towards connecting with people from the travel industry.
How We Found OTM Travel Show?
As a professional content writer, I do a lot of research and I came upon this website that talked about the OTM travel show. So, I decided to read more about and realized that it takes place in Mumbai. I talked to Sarah about it and we mutually decided to visit it the next time it happens.
We registered on the site and got our visitor badges. To be honest, we were not sure what the show would be like but it was a good experience in its own.
Our OTM Travel Show Experience
We decided to pick the afternoon hours to avoid rush. However, the OTM travel show had decent crowd already. To add some pictures to the blog we shot some of the below images. OTM Travel Show takes place at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Goregaon, Mumbai.
This is an exclusive 3-day B2B travel show where the first two days are for the travel industry people. The final day is open to general public. OTM travel show brings more than 1100 exhibitors from India and 55 countries together.
Although, the show is B2B, you can still find hotels and resort firms offering you great holiday deals. Hence, if you have plans for travel you can still visit this travel show to find some great travel packages.
Upon entering the convention center the first thing that caught our attention was the Uttarakhand Tourism booth. It is the replica of the immensely popular Badrinath Temple located in Uttarakhand. It was the perfect start to the OTM travel show.
Uttarakhand is one of the northern states in India popular for many Hindu temples and pilgrim centers. Formerly known as Uttaranchal, it is also called ‘Dev Bhumi‘ literally stands for the Land of the Gods. It borders Tibet on the north and Nepal on the east.
If you have interest in Uttarakhand, you can visit places like Rishikesh, Dhanaulti, Nainital, Dehradun, and Almora. Uttarakhand has many honeymoon spots and temples that you can explore.
To the left of Uttarakhand Tourism booth was Jammu & Kashmir Tourism booth. It wasn’t a fancy one, but it had a decent crowd. Jammu & Kashmir is among the top destinations in India. Hence, it always receives plenty of attention as many people plan to travel to places here.
When we think of Jammu & Kashmir, some of the top spots here are Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Srinagar, and Jammu. The state also has plenty of honeymoon places here. You can always search for the top honeymoon destinations in Jammu and Kashmir state.
Up next on our OTM travel show list was the Maharashtra Tourism booth. We were quickly drawn towards it, of course, I want to know more about what ‘our‘ state has to offer. We couldn’t believe when we saw Vasai on one of their marketing flyers. It was a moment of pride for us both.
Vasai has a great history. Also, it has some great forts and beaches and plenty of garden, grassland and forest birds that migrate here annually.
There were many hotels and resort representatives ready to provide answers and itineraries to travel enthusiasts. There was a huge list of places that they were promoting along with camping gear which you can see in the images.
Maharashtra has plenty of beaches in the Konkan region. Diveagar Beach, Harnai Murud Beach, Guhagar, Tarkali, Vengurla, and Harihareshwar Beach are simple spectacular. Apart from this, those who love wildlife can explore the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.
Travelers looking for a break can unwind at some of the best hill stations like Mahabaleshwar, Matheran, Lonavala, Khandala, Wai, Amboli, Bhandardara and Chikaldara. You can also focus on some monsoon road trips in Maharashtra.
As we move in further into the convention center, we came to Odisha Tourism booth. Located to the east, Odisha state has a huge coastline of 300 miles along the Bay of Bengal. This state has a culinary tradition that spans centuries, especially sweet cuisine.
Odisha is also popular for Odissi, one of the oldest surviving dance form in India. Odisha is also rich in literature, music and structural art.
In terms of booth design, Karnataka Tourism booth was one of the best. It is a replica of Saavira Kambada Basadi Jain temple in Moodabidri. It is the finest Jain temple in the state and popularly known as the Chandranatha Temple.
Karnataka is the south western state right below Maharashtra and Goa.
The Gujarat Tourism booth was simple and effective. I had expected Gujarat tourism booth to be grand and majestic, but to my amazement they kept it as simple as they could.
The state also has plenty of historical temples and religious places to visit. Wildlife lovers can explore wide number of bird sanctuaries and animal reserves. The Gir National Park in Gujarat is the only place outside Africa where you can spot Asian lions moving freely in the wilderness.
The Make in India booth was quite busy with more visitors trying to understand what it was about. Well, the booth was for companies who would want to start their operations in India and would want tour packages for their employees and so on.
It was more of a B2B kind of thing that was happening at the booth.
Apart from the various state tourism boards, there were hundreds of hotels and resort companies displaying their services to the visitors. You can explore the images below that will tell you more about our experiences.
While clicking pictures and browsing through the OTM travel show we had the opportunity to meet several people. We talked to various resort and hotel owners and co-owners of travel firms. We also found out more about various new destinations and places to travel in India.
Conclusion
To be fair and honest, OTM travel show is a great place to visit if you love to travel in India and abroad as well. The only reason we didn’t cover the international segment is because our blog focuses on India only. On the other hand, India is a huge country and covering so many stalls and meeting so many people takes plenty of time.
We tried to cover as much ground as possible in a day. If you have plans to visit the OTM travel show in the future, we would recommend that you pre-plan the destinations you prefer. As a result, with this you can focus on all hotels and resorts and travel options related to that/those destination/s.
Above all, if you’re a blogger like us, we would like to share that this is not the event to promote your presence. You can visit this event to find out about different destinations and hotels in India and globally. It is a B2B event and hotel and resort owners are looking for business deals, not bloggers. If you are a travel agent this is the right show for you. Being a B2B event, you can spread your business further.
15 comments
You always present informatio in such an appealing, i teresting way. I look forward to your next travel adventure!
Thanks Cheryl.
I think I would like to travel to Odisha. As soon as you said this state was noted for their “sweet cuisine,” I was interested. What type of sweet treats do they offer?
I think I will have to write another post focusing only on cuisine of Odisha because the list is endless. If you’re a foodie you’ll go crazy eating all the delicious dishes. However, you asked me about the sweet cuisine so in Odisha they have Kheer which is made from rice. They have Malpua which is basically sweet pancake made from bananas,coconuts and cardamoms. The insanely famous Rasgolla is not to miss out made from semolina dough. Rasgollas are ball shape sweet dumplings. They have gulab jamuns made from milk solids. Chenna Poda which is kind of roasted cheese cake. Is this enough to make you feel hungry?
Oh absolutely! I’ll be thinking of all those treats as I eat my simple toast and peanut butter for breakfast.
Have you read my street food in Mumbai post? I think you’ll love it. https://indiadestinationsblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/savoring-the-street-food-of-mumbai-part-1/
I’ll take a look at lunch!
It’s hard to grasp the size of this show. I’m not sure where we have a travel show, open to thd public )not industry). Maybe in New York. Great pictures and explanations.
To be honest, I wanted to take a top view shot of the convention center, but there was no way for me to do that. In few pictures you can see the ventilation shafts and the top area. This was not really meant for the public, but on the last day they had 5-hour exclusive window for the public and I made use of that time frame. The amount of discounts and offers available were good for travel enthusiasts. All types of luxury and budget hotel owners were here so it was good to talk to them, to understand which is the best time to visit certain places, what’s good about that place and so on. Lately, I have been attracted to conventions where I can talk face to face to experts and extract some real information, unlike paid reviews we find online which is mostly fake.
That’s a very good idea. I would imagine that it’s hard to get good information on that industry.
Sounds like a great event. Good you reached early to get more time and the pictures show the magic. Looking forward to more posts on travel destinations.
Thanks Parul. Yes, working on new travel posts. Did you read my earlier travel cum history post? Not a compulsion, but just checking.
I think one I read but not others. Actually, I was missing you around. Looks like we both got busy. Let me quickly check 🙂
You seem so passionate about travelling.I,also love travelling.Nice to know someone who is as mad about travelling as i am.
The unique thing about travel is that two different travellers traveling the same place will see things differently, have different experiences and different likings. It’s like what you see is what you get.