The Government of India’s move to allow fully vaccinated foreign tourists to visit India is a welcome step and will provide a fresh lease of life to the exhibitions and events industry. Globally, exhibitions industries are restarting their operations with a number of exhibitions being held in Las Vegas, Barcelona, Dubai, Shanghai, and other places. Indian exhibition industry which organizes around 550 events annually is also bracing up to restart shows. Some shows have been held in Delhi and Bangalore. Recently, the India International Jewellery Show Premiere, one of the top 5 gems and jewellery shows of the world was held at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre. BIEC will be hosting more shows in the coming quarters. 

Welcoming the government move to open up international and domestic travel, V Anbu, Director General & CEO, BIEC and IMTMA and President, UFI said, “With the massive vaccination programme initiated by the government and around 80 crore population already being vaccinated, things are expected to normalize by end of this year.   With the pace of vaccination, I presume that around 70 percent of the population of the country will be fully vaccinated by end of 2021.  It would also be useful to consider opening up of scheduled commercial flights for fully vaccinated people from countries, which mutually agree to recognize and share vaccination data. This will encourage both tourists as well as business visitors make their travel plans ahead of the year-end tourism, exhibition and events season. Opening up of scheduled flights will provide a strong vote of confidence for India’s vaccination drive and assure visitors of safe travel within India.”