Category Archives: Agents

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.

Efforts put in by TAAI have finally borne fruit as the government has now permitted travel agents to book Vande Bharat flights. “We appreciate Air India, MoCA and NITI Aayog for supporting our initiatives, and look forward to more compliances to support the struggling industry,” says Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI. As of now, flights to USA, Germany (FRA) and France (CDG) have been announced in the coming phase.

Thomas Cook India has signed an agreement with dnata Travel to operate as the Travel Management Company (TMC) to service dnata’s customers as it closes its TMC operation in India. The transition will be completed in the next few weeks. Mahesh Iyer, Executive Director & CEO, Thomas Cook India, says, “Our first focus will be ensuring continuity of service needs.”

Singapore and Bengaluru-based air retailing and payments platform Mystifly has raised US $3.3 M in Pre-Series B financing round from Recruit. This investment will help Mystifly to continue strengthening its product and technology, data science and Machine Learning capabilities, as well as address airline payments inefficiency while weathering the COVID-19 storm.

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.

TravTalk and Etihad Airways are set to host an ‘Agent Connect’ webinar, a live journey of flying through COVID-19, today from 11 am onwards. Travel agents will get the chance to learn about Etihad Airways and UAE’s capital city – Abu Dhabi. To register, please email to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +91 9650196532.

Various travel & tourism associations of Gujarat have met the tourism minister of the state to discuss revival and tourism development plan in the state. Demand seeking industry status was also made along with waiver or relief from the current pandemic. Minister Jawaharbhai Chavda listened to the associations calmly and assured to the needful. A white paper on behalf of all associations was also presented.  

Etihad Airways and TravTalk are all geared up to host an ‘Agent Connect’ webinar, a live journey of flying through COVID, on Thursday, 9th July, 11 am onwards. Agents will get the chance to learn about Etihad Airways and UAE’s capital city – Abu Dhabi. To register, please email to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +91 9650196532.

VFS Global will host a webinar for the trade and its travel partners today at 11 am. The session titled ‘A Safe Restart- Your Safety, Our Priority’ will offer a glimpse into VFS Global’s plan as it resumes visa services in India. To attend the webinar, register at https://event.webinarjam.com/register/141/pyr19b51 or email to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call 9650196532.

Rare India has unveiled three new initiatives for sustainable living- RARE Travel Agency Network (RATAN), RARE Influencers Network (RAIN) and Beautiful Planet. The company is also open to partnership with travel agencies to promote a sustainable way of living.