IPW Success Brings San Antonio on Indian Tour Operators' Agenda

The success of recently-concluded IPW 2023, the leading inbound travel show in the United States, held in San Antonio brought the Texan city to Indian travel trade's agenda

- Varsha Singh

Few Indians may be aware of San Antonio, a city in Texas in the southern United States. But the charming city, with its colonial and Hispanic heritage and which is also known as the Culinary Capital of Texas, is now bound to get a large number of Indian visitors, the most sought-after tourists in the world today.

This flow of tourists, which is set to materialise in the months to come, is almost entirely due to the immense success of the recently concluded 54th edition of US Travel's IPW, the biggest inbound travel show in the country.

The show, which was hosted for the first time by San Antonio, saw a near record turnout of over 5,000 attendees from more than 60 nations and who conducted over 90,000 scheduled business meetings. A fair number of leading Indian travel companies were amongst the attendees and all of them heaped lavish praises on not just the successful conduct of the event by San Antonio, but were also floored by the beauty and culture of the city that most of them had never visited.

"All IPWs are fantastic. What is so special about this year was the fact that it happened when we are saying goodbye to Covid-19. This is the first year where we had a fantastic attendance. And the other thing special I think was the destination. San Antonio has been fantastic. All of us have been so pleasantly surprised by the city, its charm, its people, the diversity and offerings and culture. And I have to say congratulations to this team. They have done a fantastic job of everything and, you know, hosting all of us here in their beautiful city," Sheema Vohra, Managing Director, Sartha Global Marketing and IAC Chair IPW tells India Outbound.

Vohra adds that IPW is the only platform where at one time and at one spot, one can meet all the decision makers, from destinations to attractions to receptives, special experiences or anything that one wants to do with itineraries or programmes to the United States.