G Krishan Reddy, Union Minister For Culture, Tourism And Development Of North Eastern Region holds interactive meeting with various tourism stakeholders of Goa along with Department of Tourism, Goa, to discusskey issues pertaining to promotion of tourism in the state and various developmental initiatives & welfare programs of the government. Shripad Y. Naik, Union Minister of State for Ports, Shipping & Waterways and Tourism Govt. Of India was also a part of the meeting.

In its 249th EC Meeting on 23rd December, 2021PATA India Chapter announced that Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism, will remain as Chairman. Apart from that Jatinder Taneja, MD, Travel Spirit International was re-elected unopposed as the Vice Chairman; as well as Vikram Madhok, MD, Abercrombie & Kent as Hon. Secretary. SanJeet, Director, DDP Publications, remains Hon. Treasurer and  Runeep Sangha will continue as Executive Director, PATA India Chapter.

Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), India-chapter dedicated to the incentive travel industry, has elected Barun Gupta, Director of Sales and Marketing, CrownePlaza Greater Noida, as the new President for the next one year (2022-2023). Barun will replace Nitin Sachdeva as President who has now been nominated as the SITE Global Board of Directors representing the Asia region.

Shilendra Mohanachandran, VP-Sales, CGH Earth, has shared that by 26th December, 2021, they will have a new hotel opening in Havelock on Andaman, called Tilar Siro. “It’s a 25-room hotel, which has 16 villas. It’s a new area for us  and an upcoming destination amongst Indians, as well as inbound,” he added.

The UNWTO tourism dashboard highlights that Indians spent US$ 12.6 billion last year on outbound trips. While this is -45% from the previous year (2019) where Indians spent US$ 22.9 billion. In 2019, the expenditure per departure from India was US$ 851, this number is expected to be different in 2020. In order to better understand outbound tourism, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) launched a dashboard on country profiles with data on outbound tourism.

Ministry of Tourism will be organising an event to recognisethe women that are contributing to travel trade and hospitality in India, reveals Rupinder Brar, ADG, Tourism. She also shared that the event will be held on International Women’s Day on 8th March, 2022. “We will be organisingthis event because women make a lot of difference to our country, to our industry and hence we want to recognisethat,” she added.

Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi’s Webinar titled, ‘Reunite #InAbu Dhabi – Family’ is scheduled on 22nd December at 3 pm IST. Hear more about family-friendly attractions, unique hotels, culture, entertainment, and lots more directly from our destination partners in Abu Dhabi. To register, write to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +91 9650196532.

The Ministry of Tourism started the destination based skill development-training program at 7 iconic sites in Financial Year 2019-20 to train, upgrade and sensitize the local people residing near these tourism sites and destinations. This program is geared towards enhancing employability, in both rural and urban destinations and to upgrade the manpower servicing the tourism sector.

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, during their 36th convention in Gandhinagar announced that their next convention will be held in September 2022 at Bengaluru. They have even finalised their 2023 convention in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. He also revealed that they have got offers from many other states, one of which is J&K, where they might have a small event very soon.

The 6th edition of Travel MICE Show 2021 was held on 16th & 17th December 2021 at Surya Hotel, New Delhi. The 2-day event witnessed a strong attendance from 25 suppliers and 45 corporates, who then forged long-term business associations through pre-arranged appointments. The theme of this year’s event was “Connect, Converse, Collaborate”. The industry dignitaries shared their options on how the industry could work to enhance the ease of doing business in the panel discussion held at the event.