The Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) will conduct an exclusive webinar on July 24 with the Regional Ministry of Tourism Office to demonstrate to its members how they can get a ‘Ministry of Tourism Recognized Service Provider’ stamp. Presentation will be done by Venkatesan Dhattareyan, Regional Director (West & Central India), Indiatourism Mumbai, Ministry of Tourism.

IATA has reported that intra-EU passengers have used many vouchers, issued since mid-March 2020 in lieu of refunds, to pay for travel between 15-Jun-2020 and 15-Jul-2020. Airlines are now incurring the deferred cost of transporting these passengers against limited or zero new revenues. IATA stated, “Whilst the issuance of vouchers helped decelerate cash burn a few weeks ago, their use will now accelerate cash burn in the coming months’. The data is based on IATA’s Billing and Settlement Process, which underestimates the use of vouchers because it does not record vouchers as exchanges in all cases.

Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has set up a single-window clearance mechanism to expedite various investment proposals in the domestic aviation industry. “MoCA has an Investment Clearance Cell (ICC) for prompt assistance and clearance,” the ministry mentioned in a tweet recently. According to MoCA the setting up of the ICC was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020-2021 Union Budget in February this year. The cell was also set up following an order from the Department of Promotion of Industry (DPIT) on July 1 in this regard. The 10-member ICC will be headed by Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary, MoCA. The ICC has been mandated to serve as a single-window system for attracting investment and its terms of reference include accelerating investments, bringing projects to the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) which require special incentive, policy interventions, expeditious clearances and systematic references, among others, the MoCA order said.

After the recent news of Regional Transport Office (RTO) warning travel agents in Uttar Pradesh to obtain registration licenses within 10 days, Siddharth Yadav from the Assistant RTO (ARTO) Enforcement Office in Lucknow has clarified that this license is required only by those travel agents who are into car and bus rentals. Air ticketing agents do not fall under their purview. Interestingly, registration of travel agents and tour operators is part of the tourism policy passed by Uttar Pradesh but which is yet to see the light of day.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism & Culture, along with Chief Minister of Gujarat Sh. Vijaybhai Rupanion, joined the inauguration of project ‘Development of Pilgrimage Amenities at Somnath, Gujarat’ under the PRASHAD scheme. Sanctioned under the PRASHAD scheme in March 2017, the project has been successfully completed with the cost of Rs. 45.36 crores. High quality world-class facilities for parking, tourism amenities centre and solid waste management have been developed under the project.

The average lead time, i.e. the number of days between booking date and travel date (how far in advance travellers book their trips), for long- haul travel to South Asia is 73 days, according to ForwardKeys.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) recently organised a one-week online contest to stay connected with Indian social media influencers encouraging them to create a nice video or photo story from their stock of materials of a fond #ThrowbackThailand memory.  Initiated by TAT New Delhi and Mumbai Offices, the contest represented a token of gratitude that TAT wanted to convey to Indian social media influencers. In a normal situation, they would usually travel to various parts of Thailand and share their experiences during the year. But this year, making trips to Thailand has not been possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vachirachai Sirisumpan, Director, TAT New Delhi Office, said the activity was conceptualised with the Millennials in mind, considering that they would be the early travellers once the situation returned to normal. “We would like to thank all participants for joining this online event and keeping the spirit of travel and tourism moving during this challenging period,” he said. Taking place during the last week of May 2020, the online contest attracted over 100 high-quality unique entries, including many top award-winning ones. The contest was a huge success in terms of reaching out to the public through India’s social media influencer community, achieving more than 2.4 million impressions across the country. After a very careful selection process considering both quality and engagement, the winners were picked by the appointed committee. Out of the hundreds of participants, five were selected as Grand Winners and each received a GoPro Hero 8 Sports and Action Camera while 10 were chosen runner-up winners who also received gifts. Cholada Siddhivarn, Director of the TAT Mumbai Office, extended her warmest congratulations and appreciation to all social …

Travelport has launched the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin. The plugin provides travel agencies with the latest information on government restrictions, lockdowns and safety measures across the globe all within the agent workflow. It is available free-of-charge to all Travelport customers globally, using Travelport Smartpoint 8.2 or above, and can be downloaded directly from Travelport Marketplace. The new tool provides detailed information on a range of topics, including: lockdown rules, entry requirements and quarantine measures for travelers. Country-level information can be displayed at the click of a button, allowing agents to advise their customers easily and instantly. Kyle Moore, Global Head of Customer Strategy and Marketing, Travelport, said, “The travel ecosystem today is probably the most complex it has ever been, with government, airline, and hotel policies in every country constantly-changing. We’re making sure our agent partners no longer need to constantly leave their workflow to search for accurate and up-to-date information— greatly improving their efficiency in servicing their traveller customers.” Sandeep Dwivedi, Chief Operating Officer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient, said: With the looming uncertainty across the globe, having a substantial amount of certainty through readily accessible up-to-date information including on government and airline policies shall unequivocally prove beneficial for our network of agents and serve as a ready aid for gaining momentum in operations and transactions. This free built-in plugin in the GDS is a welcome move from Travelport, one that will result in both informed traveller and travel enabler.” The information in the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin is provided by global travel safety intelligence provider, Safeture, and is updated daily. “Our collaboration with Travelport will provide millions of travellers with the information they need to make informed decisions. With …

International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that airlines in the Asia-Pacific region will be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis, with losses expected to be $29 billion for 2020. This is more than a third of the $84.3 billion industry losses globally.

As part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Initiatives by GPS, agents can now own a booking engine portal, which has been developed by GPS in partnership with Influence Technolabs. Apart from they have also launched GST ready accounting solutions for travel and retail industry in association with Infozeal E-solutions. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has said these two solutions are subscription based. The subscription charges are waived off till 31st March 2021. There is a nominal one-time integration charges applicable based on membership level of GPS.