Assistant Secretary for Planning and Tourism Promotion Edu Jarque, whom Tourism Secretary Ace Durano designated to head the DoT marketing team to India, said "India is a new market for us. Its potential is very strong, and the number of its outbound tourists is very high. Our neighboring countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are doing very well in India with almost half a million Indian tourists every year for each of them. What our neighbors have for Indians we have also and even more."

He said Indian tourists going to these three countries are spenders who usually stayed at the best hotels and spend ,000 to ,200 a day on their trip. "We have to get a share of this good market before it’s too late. We want to target Indians who had been to Bangkok, Malaysia and Singapore," Jarque added.

He said starting February, the DoT will host a series of familiarization trips for travel operators who are interested in selling the Philippines to India. "Our initial study showed that Indian tourists are interested in the city for shopping, entertainment and night life. We will bring Indian travel operators here to show them that we have all these,’’ Jarque said. He also said that the DoT will likewise, invite media men (print and TV) from India to show them our cities and all what they can offer.

He said a day-long seminar is scheduled for local travel operators who are interested to sell the country to India.

Asked how the idea of India came about, Jarque said: "We have been attending a lot of seminars and conferences like those sponsored by Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and the one held in Macau and we learned that India, second to China, has a growing number of outbound tourists."

He said that as part of the marketing plan, the Philippines through the DoT will make a strong presence in the forthcoming New Delhi International Travel Fair on April 22-26. He said Secretary Ace Durano wants to put up a beautiful booth "so that we will be noticed not only by the Indians but international visitors and participants to the fair."

Jarque said that despite the fact that Indians love the city ‘’we will show them also our beautiful beaches and resorts where majority of foreign tourists want to go."

He said that with India as a promising new market and the publicity generated for the Philippines in the recently held ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF), the three million tourist arrivals target for this year becomes more viable. It maybe recalled that with Secretary Durano at the helm of the DoT, it surpassed its 2.6 million international visitors target for the year 2005.