Vidhi Godiawala, STR’s Business Development Manager for South and Central Asia, says, “Until March of this year, India and China were trading places for the highest intention to travel. While current travel sentiment remains clouded, recovery from the first wave gives us reason to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel for hotels in the country.”

Thomas Cook India & SOTC Travel have announced a two-pronged strategy: ‘TravShield’ and ‘Holiday First and Pay When You Return’ to cover every aspect of physical and financial safety. While the former is a comprehensive safe travel commitment to safe guard customers, the latter provides customers the flexibility and benefits of paying only once they return from their holiday.

Karnataka Tourism Society (KTS) has written to CP Yogeeshwara, Minister for Tourism, Ecology and Environment, Government of Karnataka, to lift the lockdown imposed on the state from June 21 in a graded manner, in order to ease the pressure on the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors. It is estimated by KTS that the job loss in in excess of 5,00,000 and revenue loss close to Rs75,000 crore.

The government of Bihar has allocated a little over Rs13 crore for the development of a new theme park and museum in Prakash Punj, dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh. Prakash Punj covers a 10 acre area at Patna Sahib. It will have two exhibition halls, an auditorium, and even galleries. The development is planned to commemorate the 350th birth anniversary of the Guru.

The government of Malaysia has issued new guidelines for passengers travelling to Kuala Lumpur from India, including a COVID-19 swab test, the cost of which will be borne by the passenger, as well as 21 days of quarantine in a hotel. Passengers are also required to submit an RT-PCR negative report within 72 hours prior to departure.

The Airports Authority of India has achieved another milestone in getting its staff across the country, as well as their dependants, fully vaccinated. As part of this massive initiative, the Authority claims that all the staff at the Jammu airport is now vaccinated. Since the launch of the initiative, Airports Authority of India has conducted the mass inoculation drive across several airports under its aegis.

Sanjay Wadhawan, a hotelier with 42 years of experience in the tourism and hospitality space, has begun a new innings with his team – Sehar Shamim and US Jamwal – by launching a fully serviced, luxury homestay brand ‘Earthaa Escapes’. The company’s flagship property, Aranya, at Mashobra, has seen great response within a couple of months of its launch and is running at 100% occupancy. Earthaa Escapes is poised to launch its next two properties in the Delhi-NCR region by mid-July, and is in final negotiations with 15 homeowners for signing them on to its platform. Earthaa will also shortly launch a riverside villa in Goa, and already has few other villas under discussion. The first phase of expansion will target states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa. Earthaa Escapes is also all set to launch its own booking engine and website soon.

A total of six regions from South Korea will be showcased at the first virtual Korea Travel Expo which is to be held from June 22-24, 2021. The regions, represented by their RTOs, are Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Jeju and Gyeongsangbuk-do, revealed Young-Geul Choi, Director, Korea Tourism Organization. Register at www.koreatravelexpo.com, write to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com, or call +91 9650196532.

A recent IATA Air Passenger Market Analysis reveals that improvement in early bookings for June-August travel period indicate a revival of demand for the summer season. Although passengers continue to book close to the travel date, nevertheless, the improvement in two months’ forward travel bookings compared to the same period in 2019 is robust, (-72% vs -66%).

Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog, has said that Maharashtra’s Aurangabad needs both an international airport as well as a state-of-the-art convention centre to boost tourism in the region. Kant announced this at his recent two-day visit to Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC), and added that while other newer cities took time to establish, Aurangabad already has ready infrastructure.