India and Madagascar are advancing towards a stronger bilateral relation, where tourism is going to be the first and foremost ground to be unpacked. Few days back the Indian High Commission in Antananarivo, organised an event, in collaboration with Air Mauritius, at the Indian Embassy to promote tourism between the two nations.
With 592,800 square kilometres of geographical land in Indian Ocean, Madagascar is considered as the world’s 2nd largest island country. Previously it was known as the Malagasy Republic and Antananarivo is its current capital city.
An association of a huge island nation like Madagascar’s rare beauty along with the rich culture of a diversified nation like India will surely serve the touristic need of each other.
So making the event successful, over 20 Malagasy tour operators, country director of Air Mauritius, and Tourism Ministry officials participated in the event.
During it, the Indian Ambassador Abhay Kumar sheding light on some of the popular tourist destinations of India, invited Malagasy tour operators to visit India. This will pave the way for them to design attractive tour packages for Malagasy tourists.
Then again, the Indian Tourism Ministry and its Embassy, through Air Mauritius, also are going to organise a familiarisation visit for Malagasy tour operators and travel journalists, very soon, briefed Mr. Kumar.
But for any sort of relationship between both the countries, the factor which is of utmost importance is – connectivity. Though India and Madagascar do not enjoy any direct air connectivity so far, recently, Air Mauritius’s Country Manager Lilia Mika, has made an announcement of new daily flights between Antananarivo and Mauritius. This on its part will improve air connectivity between Madagascar and Indian cities – those are well connected to Mauritius – like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore.
Again for passengers’ convenience the Indian Ambassador also urged Air Mauritius to slightly modify the timings of its flights from Delhi to Mauritius and Mauritius to Antananarivo so that the travellers will refrain from an over-night waiting at Mauritius Airport while travelling from Delhi to Antananarivo.
This is not all, Madagascar’s Tourism Ministry will also soon to conduct roadshows in major Indian cities to attract Indian tourists to Madagascar.
