Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, Jagsons Travels, and Co-founder of GPS, won the Face of Innovative Tourism award at the third West India Travel Awards, held at Novotel Pune Nagar Road on August 5, 2016. Anand is a popular name in the travel industry of the region and is the brain behind Global Panorama Showcase (GPS), a premium travel and tourism B2B event. This year GPS travelled beyond Nagpur to the cities of Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Coimbatore. Anand also held the post of honorary secretary of TAAI till 2015.

The third edition of West India Travel Awards felicitated achievers in the travel and tourism industry of the region during a glittering ceremony held at Novotel Pune Nagar Road on August 5, 2016. The opening ceremony was graced by the presence of Taware Pandurang, Founder/President, Agri Tourism Development Company,  Dattaram Sawant, General Manager, Finance, Goa Tourism Development Corporation and Saudamini Naik, Gladrags Mrs. India. The who’s who of the travel industry from West India attended at the event. The West India Travel Awards salutes the best in the industry and awardees are selected based on a non-biased system of voting.

Etihad Airways has introduced a first-of-its-kind senior citizens’ package offering enhanced privileges for the over 60s travelling from India to USA. Senior citizens flying from any of Etihad Airways’ 11 Indian gateway cities can benefit from added value services, including a 24/7 helpline number, pre-flight travel and medical checklist support and special assistance at check-in counters. Also on offer are fare reductions of up to 10 per cent in Business Class and 5 per cent in Economy until 31 August 2016, for travel by 31 December 2016, together with 60 per cent bonus Etihad Guest loyalty miles on every senior citizen ticket booking. The special package is applicable to guests aged over 60 flying in Business and Economy Class on Etihad Airways. Senior citizens are also assured of Indian meals and Indian cabin crew on all flights from India, as well as a large selection of latest and classic Indian movies on all flights from India to the USA. Neerja Bhatia, Etihad Airways Vice President Indian Subcontinent, said: “Etihad Airways is all about providing the highest levels of service, and both care and attention that our guests would normally experience at home.

India Travel Mart (ITM) Amritsar is back in the city with a special focus on promoting sports and adventure, pilgrimage tourism, hill tourism, beach tourism, honeymoon packages, MICE and medical tourism. The three day exhibition is scheduled for August 12 to 14, 2016 at Hotel Holiday Inn, Ranjit Avenue, Amritsar, Punjab. ITM will witness specially prepared travel and tour packages, hotels & resorts deals from tour operators, destination wedding packages and honeymoon packages. “With the kind of stressful lives that we lead, a person tends to look for refreshing holidays and unique travel destination to unwind, to simplify this need and to help people of India in choosing the best option according to their requirements, we organize ITM-Amritsar annually wherein the customers get specially designed packages and great deals with countless choices. The constant support and eager interest from Travel Industry makes it a success year after year. So if you are planning to visit a place you have never been before or if you are willing to explore fresh tourists ‘spots then visit our exhibition” says Ajay Gupta, Managing Director, ITM. Gupta added, “ITM-Amritsar caters to the needs of both B2B and B2C visitors. The basic purpose of holding this event is to boost tourism awareness worldwide. We believe that the inflow of domestic and outbound tourists will increase in the coming months and Punjab will play a vital role in the promotion of Tourism. Our main aim is to promote tourism potential in India and spread awareness among the people. “Tier II and Tier III cities are evolving day after day and we understand the need to promote these developing cities in Indian tourism sector as they have …

To celebrate its 10 years in the domestic skies, IndiGo has launched a unique programme called – The 6E Explorer, to make travel more memorable and personalized for leisure and corporate travellers. The first of its kind, ‘The 6E Explorer Programme’ will go live on August 05, 2016 with the announcement of the call-for-entries across India to get passionate travellers on board as “6E Explorer”. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed by the IndiGo leadership and external jury based on their passion for travel. The shortlisted Explorers will need to travel to a specific IndiGo destination and create fresh content in the form blogs, images & videos with their perspective of that city. This primary curated content will comprise of not so popular, seen or heard of places to eat, see, party, things to do; advise for family traveller, backpackers and much more. IndiGo will appoint one Explorer per state for an initial period of 1 year and each Explorer will be required to travel to at least 4-6 destinations within or outside his state. The Explorer will share his personalized travel experience on IndiGo website under the IndiGo destinations section. These personalised travel experiences will be populated on the website as “Travel advisory” for IndiGo passengers to view travel trends of the destinations the airline flies to. With the launch of this programme, IndiGo passengers are encouraged to refer to these travel advisories which is intended to enhance their travel experience.

SpiceJet flagged off its first flight from Gaya to Mecca for the Hajj 2016 season. The Airbus320 which departed on its schedule time of 11.30 AM from the Gaya airport carried 135 passengers onboard. The flight was inaugurated by Dr. Abdul Ghafoor, Minister of Minority Affairs, Government of Bihar, Kumar Ravi, District Magistrate, Gaya, Dilip Kumar, Airport Director, Gaya Airport and Sumant Rautela Head of Ground Services, SpiceJet along with of the Hajj Committee members. The airline will carry more than 8000 pilgrims on special flights for the annual Islamic pilgrimage Hajj in Mecca from Gaya and Indore. G.P. Gupta, Chief Administrative Officer and Accountable Manager, SpiceJet, said, “Hajj is a lifetime experience and SpiceJet will make every effort to ensure a hassle-free and delightful travel experience for all its passengers by delivering high on on-time performance and critical etiquettes ensuring absolute passenger satisfaction. We are grateful for being made a part of this humane operation and wish all our pilgrim passengers a wonderful stay at Mecca this year.” The airline has deployed two Airbus320 to ferry pilgrims from Gaya and Indore respectively. The flights will be operated from the two Indian cities to Jeddah and Madina between August 4 and September 3, 2016. The return journey for the pilgrims back to Gaya is scheduled from September 21 and to Indore from October 1. The whole activity is expected to be executed by October 20, 2016.

Kerala Tourism has rolled out a taxi campaign in Dubai targeting Arab travellers, showcasing the state’s features on taxis on the Dubai roads. Around 200 Kerala-branded taxis carry the message of ‘A Faraway Land Four Hours Away’– with visuals featuring hill stations, backwaters, waterfalls and also Ayurvedic therapies. The campaign will see the cabs take to the streets sporting wrappings aimed to promote the state’s Monsoon getaways. “Apart from the favourable climate, the relative proximity and excellent air connectivity between Kerala and the cities of the Middle East make it easier to attract holiday makers to the state,” said Dr. Venu V, Principal Secretary Tourism, Kerala. “Dubai, being the hub for air travel in the region, was the logical choice of location for the marketing campaign. The exposure and footfalls gained by Kerala will bear this out.” The campaign, inspired by the previous highly successful branding efforts on London taxi cabs and the Mumbai metro, will run until August 15. Besides serving to augment Kerala’s destination pull, it is an acknowledgment of the growing importance of the Middle East outbound tourist market. Kerala received more than one lakh visitors from the region in 2015, with some 20,506 tourists from the UAE alone. The majority came from Saudi Arabia with 51,149 Saudi nationals visiting last year, while Oman accounted for 18,763 footfalls. “As the holiday season in the Middle East coincides with the Monsoon season here, Kerala is well-positioned to benefit from the influx of travellers looking to trade in the sizzle and dust for cooler climes and greener pastures,” said U.V. Jose, Director, Kerala Tourism.

Sri Lanka is emerging as a high potential incentive destination and corporate venue for employee incentive trips and business meetings, having witnessed an impressive growth of over 15 per cent YOY, with over 233,000 MICE visitors from India in the past six years, according to data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Thomas Cook (India) recently hosted an exclusive corporate event in collaboration with Sri Lanka Convention Bureau and SriLankan Airlines to harness the demand for MICE travel to Sri Lanka across mid and large Indian corporates and SMEs. TCI’s internal research and consumer analysis reiterates the significant and growing opportunity of India’s corporate segment, with interest for Sri Lanka as a MICE destination having grown by 15-20 per cent YOY over the last three years. The exclusive corporate event in Mumbai was attended by the crème de la crème of the corporate world, Saroja Siresena, The Consul General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai, and Bollywood celebrity Jacqueline Fernandez.

India continues to lead all markets with a 23.3 per cent rise in domestic traffic in June, propelled by strong growth in real consumer spending as well as by the fact that airlines are adding airport pairs and frequencies. This was revealed in International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) global passenger traffic data for June. Demand for domestic travel climbed 5.7 per cent this June compared to June 2015, while capacity increased 4.3 per cent, causing load factor to rise 1.1 percentage points to 83.2 pre cent. All markets reported demand increases with the exception of Brazil. Domestic RPKs account for about 36 per cent of the total market. The global passenger traffic data for June showing that demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose by 5.2% compared to the year-ago period. This was up slightly from the 4.8% increase recorded in May (revised). However, the upward trend in seasonally-adjusted traffic has moderated since January. June capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 5.6%, and load factor slipped 0.3 percentage points to 80.7%. “The demand for travel continues to increase, but at a slower pace. The fragile and uncertain economic backdrop, political shocks and a wave of terrorist attacks are all contributing to a softer demand environment,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

The last leg of Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) kicked off in Coimbatore with 50 exhibitors and 130 hosted buyers. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Co-founder, GPS, said, “We have a total of 50 exhibitors and expect 250 buyers to attend. We are hosting 130 buyers and so far the response has been very good. The informative sessions that were held yesterday received a strong response where over 130 attendees were present.” Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager-India, South Africa Tourism inaugurated the Coimbatore edition along with Anand and Madhu Saliankar, Director, GPS, at Le Meridien, Coimbatore.