Category Archives: Agents

Redefining the art of bespoke luxury holidays for perceptive travellers – A Travel Circle launches today in India. For Pritish Shah – Founder & CEO, A Travel Circle, this is the newest addition to his successfully established experiential travel brands in India for the high-end traveller – including A Travel Duet that has been specialising in exclusive travel for couples for almost a decade. “This pandemic has fast-tracked us to launch A Travel Circle, as the changing travel expectations in the new normal world align very well with our product offerings – private villas for social distancing, private jets to avoid commercial airports, highest standards in safety with our carefully selected hospitality partners and other service vendors,” he said. Offering thoughtfully designed, private journeys to the most desirable destinations around the world, A Travel Circle helps guests celebrate close bonds and togetherness with their circle of loved ones. The in-house creative team has the calibre to exclusively create an array of special interest vacations and unique bonding experiences for guests. Celebrating the spirit of wanderlust, this bespoke travel brand is dedicated to crafting the most carefully planned holidays, away from the rigmarole of urban life with those who matter. With a meticulously handpicked selection of the finest private villas or small boutique hotels for buy-outs, offering customised service that suit the lifestyle preferences of each guest, A Travel Circle is a preferred partner in India for prominent luxury hospitality brands located across idyllic destinations globally, such as – Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts and more. 

Sabre Corporation has announced an enhanced partnership with one of India’s largest travel companies, Akbar Travels of India, cementing a valued two-decade long relationship between the two firms as Akbar forges ahead with plans for domestic and overseas growth. Akbar Travels is already a long-time user of Sabre solutions, having implemented Sabre’s APIs to drive operational efficiencies and the Sabre Automated Exchange solution to save costs and improve customer service. Now, Akbar Travels, which has 150 branches across India, 36 offices in the Middle East, Malaysia, UK, Italy and the US, has selected Sabre’s Content Services for Lodging APIs to enable its agents to more easily shop, compare and book more than a million lodging options for clients. “Sabre and Akbar Travels have had a long, valued and productive relationship, and we’re excited to be again expanding our partnership by using Sabre’s Content Services for Lodging technologies to provide further choice and even better service for our travellers. There are already clear signs of a pent-up demand for travel post Covid-19 and we needed technological solutions which provide us with the most intuitive way to shop and book for our travellers in order to provide truly personalized options for our clients,” said Mr. K.V. Abdul Nazar, Chairman & Managing Director of Akbar Travels of India. Sabre’s Content Services for Lodging powers agency and corporate booking tools, integrating traditional GDS content from hoteliers, alongside content from the likes of Booking.com, Bedsonline and Expedia Partner Solutions. The Sabre-led Content Services for Lodging has been integrated into Akbar Travels’ operations through Sabre Red 360, allowing agents access to real-time, rich content on an intuitive graphical interface to make it easier for agents to …

Eastern Himalaya Travel & Tour Operators’ Association (EHTTOA), Travel Agents’ Association of Bengal (TAAB) and Himalayan Hospitality & Tourism Development Network (HHTDN), have joined hands to come up with decisions and demands to try and pragmatically revive the tourism sector in the state. The associations have decided that travellers and agents who paid for a trip that later got cancelled because of the lockdown and pandemic will get a credit note for the full amount with one-year validity. “We have resolved to work together on common issues to expedite the industry’s revival. The idea is to go by a set of decisions which we have made and approach government departments and agencies so that relief in some form comes to the sector that we believe is the worst hit in the region,” said Sandipan Ghosh, General Secretary, EHTTOA. Telegraph

Travel agents need to put forth their case before the Supreme Court to make the Bench conscious of the plight of travel agents while finally deciding the matter on issue of credit shells given by airlines instead of cash refunds, says Dheeraj Nair, Partner and Vishrutyi Sahni, Associate at J. Sagar Associates. “Every individual, including the Supreme Court judges are consumers to airlines. Thus, they understand the transaction between a consumer and an airline and relate to the impact of cancellations and refunds. However, non-members of the travel industry are not aware of the transaction between an airline and a travel agent and thus, cannot relate to the impact of cancellations and refunds on travel agents. Only by placing this information on record will the Supreme Court be able to understand the direct losses being faced by travel agents in case of non-refunds and consequentially enable them to order accordingly,” says the firm.

A Travel Consul survey that analyses the impact and outlook of the COVID-19 outbreak on tour operators and agency owners suggests that at least 42% of the businesses surveyed will not be able to sustain themselves for more than three months in the absence of government intervention. A meagre 3% said they have a chance of survival for 7-10 months.

Celebrating 20 years of operations, Happy Tours will conduct a live webinar on Slovenia today at 3 pm (IST). Happy Tours has offices in Slovenia, Croatia, London and Athens and a dedicated team based in Pune. Happy Tours is an inbound European tour operator for both M!CE and leisure groups throughout Europe. It also owns a hotel near Plitvice Lakes – Hotel Lyra www.lyraplitvice.com in Croatia and has its own coaches. To register, contact Jaspreet Kaur on 9650196532 or jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.

According to a comprehensive survey conducted by EbixCash Travel & Holidays to understand travel trends in a new normal scenario, 82% of respondents feel that people will start travelling within the next 3-12 months. While the rest 18% feel it that they will travel only after a year. The responses were collected from 5,124 respondents comprising travel enthusiasts, corporates and stakeholders from M!CE sectors.

More than 2,300 tourism and hospitality students and academicians from 77 universities around the country have been registered with CSR-initiative started by Voice of India Tourism (VOIT) started to educate and enlighten the young minds of the industry through daily live learning sessions. Industry leaders from different sectors and fields are sharing their experience on video call sessions which is complementary and free of cost for students. Lucknow University is the partner for the online virtual training program of the students.

The leading international travel marketing alliance, Travel Consul reveals that while lockdowns and movement restrictions had brought business to a standstill, tourism stakeholders (46%) kept clients engaged through live chats – the most preferred mode of communication amongst all the technology available today. These virtual face-to-face interactions were followed closely by a mix of telephone calls, emails and social media participation.

Malaysia Airlines has introduced an enhanced Economy Class flexible fare options across its entire network for all passengers to enjoy, offering unparalleled safety, security, flexibility and a completely hassle-free, premium experience based on the needs of each customer. Earlier limited to domestic, ASEAN and South Asian destinations, passengers will now have access to three unique fare options (Lite, Basic, Flex), to all destinations except Malaysia to Japan and Japan to Malaysia, Jeddah and Madinah, beginning 22 June 2020. Malaysia Airlines Group Chief Executive Officer Captain Izham Ismail said, “With the world slowly recovering from the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as our passengers begin to travel again, Malaysia Airlines seeks to take them to the skies without the burden of worry, with a truly hassle-free experience. Putting their needs as priority, we took the time to listen and gain invaluable insight to our passengers through extensive feedback, and from there we redesigned, redefined and are proud to introduce our enhanced fare family, providing our dear customers with a comprehensive product that caters to their every need, no matter the nature of travels. As the first airline in the Asia Pacific region to fully introduce flexible fare options across our network, these fares will allow greater personalization for our passengers, balancing a simple and intuitive booking experience, alongside unforgettable Malaysian Hospitality onboard and on the ground, creating a stress-free and seamless travel experience. This reaffirms our commitment to putting our passengers first, especially in these uncertain times where passengers may be apprehensive to travel. With this we hope to instill a sense of confidence and trust in them to Fly Malaysia once again.” Regardless of your travel needs, all passengers …