Tourism leaders at ICONIC Summit agree coordinated plan to scale domestic travel
- Red Hat Communications hosted the ICONIC Travel & Tourism Summit 2026 at ITC Maurya in New Delhi on April 24, bringing together hotel, airline, technology and tourism executives around domestic travel growth. - Speakers including Radisson’s Nikhil Sharma, InterGlobe Hotels’ JB Singh and Amadeus South Asia’s Sandeep Dwivedi focused on digital tools, sustainable growth, destination readiness and partnerships across travel, aviation and hospitality. - The push comes as industry reports say strong domestic demand is cushioning India’s tourism sector even as international travel faces geopolitical disruption. (bwtravel.com)
India’s travel industry used the ICONIC Travel & Tourism Summit 2026 in New Delhi to argue that domestic travel is now the sector’s main growth engine. (bwtravel.com) Red Hat Communications hosted the April 24 event at ITC Maurya with Zee Network under the theme “Tourism 4.0: Coding the Resilience of the New Tomorrow.” The speaker list spanned hotels, airlines, travel technology, visa services and state tourism promotion. (bwtravel.com) (traveldailymedia.com) The lineup included Jyoti Mayal of Red Hat Communications and the Tourism & Hospitality Skill Council, Nikhil Sharma of Radisson Hotel Group, JB Singh of InterGlobe Hotels, Sandeep Dwivedi of Amadeus South Asia and Manish Puri of Air India and Air India Express. (bwtravel.com) Their agenda was concrete: digital transformation, artificial intelligence, aviation growth, hospitality standards, destination readiness and sustainable tourism. The summit materials framed those as operating priorities, not side themes. (bwtravel.com) (travelmail.in) That emphasis reflects conditions outside the ballroom. A PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry report published this week said India’s tourism and hospitality sectors remain resilient on strong domestic demand even as conflict-linked disruption weighs on international travel. (indiawest.com) (indiapost.com) The same report said tourism, aviation and hospitality contribute 8 per cent to India’s gross domestic product and support more than 40 million jobs. It also said outbound demand is tilting toward shorter-haul destinations such as Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam while long-haul routes have moderated. (indiawest.com) At the summit, executives cast collaboration as the mechanism for responding to that shift. Mayal said the industry needs joint work on innovation and skilling, while the event also brought in diplomats from Egypt, Sri Lanka and Greece to discuss cross-border tourism links. (bwtravel.com) (traveldailymedia.com) The government backdrop is a tourism system still pushing domestic circuits, packages and promotion through official platforms including the Ministry of Tourism, Incredible India and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. Private operators at ICONIC were arguing for better use of those channels with technology and product design. (tourism.gov.in) (www.incredibleindia.gov.in) (irctctourism.com) The summit did not announce a single industrywide pact or target. It did show where major operators think the next leg of growth will come from: Indian travelers booking more trips inside India, with airlines, hotels, platforms and tourism boards trying to shape that demand together. (bwtravel.com)
