Tag Archives: Delhi

BigBreaks has announced the launch of ‘Self Drive Holidays’, a unique product in association with Myles, India’s leading car rental company. At the initial stage, the holiday packages have been designed for Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, which would soon extend to other major cities too. At an all inclusive price, travellers can book a complete holiday, that includes self drive car rental and hotel accommodation on pre-planned routes. “Designed for young travellers, these self drive holidays have seen an excellent response”, said Kapil Goswamy, Founder & Managing Director, BigBreaks. Another recent launch by BigBreaks was Pilgrimage Holidays. Given the size of the pilgrimage market, both among resident Indians and non-resident Indians, Goswamy is extremely bullish on this segment. “From Kedarnath and Badrinath in the north, Rameshwar in the south, to Jagannath Puri in the east and Dwarka in the west, we’ve launched Pilgrimage Holiday options to over 20 of the important pilgrimage spots in India, and more are being added everyday. The most popular so far have been Chardham Yatra’s , where for those short on time, we’ve even begun offering Do Dham Darshan in just one day ex Delhi, Goswamy shared.

Jharkhand Tourism Department recently organised a roadshow in Delhi that saw attendance from North India’s prominent travel and trade representatives. During the occasion, Jharkhand Tourism announced its plan to celebrate the inaugural edition of upcoming Jharkhand Travel Mart (JTM) to be held in Ranchi from March 23 to 25, 2018. Sanjeev Kumar Birsa, IAS, Director – Tourism, Govt. of Jharkhand, said, “We have a clear vision for the state, with various activities planned to make Jharkhand a tourist friendly destination. The state has a great potential to offer through tourism products and attractions such as wildlife, pilgrimage, heritage and leisure. JTM will help us to promote the state and the tourism products it has to offer to the domestic as well as the international traveller.” Jharkhand Tourism is also organising mega roadshows in various cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Patna and Asansol. Dr. Manish Ranjan, IAS, Secretary – Tourism, Govt. of Jharkhand said, “Jharkhand will contribute immensely to the Indian Tourism portfolio with its diverse range of travel and tourism destinations. The event is an extension of our aggressive marketing approach to introduce more tourism destinations and attractions and reinforce the Jharkhand Tourism Brand among the media, buyers and stakeholders.” The event will seek support from all major national travel trade and hospitality associations in India.

The international airports of Mumbai and New Delhi have been rated as the number one airports in the Asia Pacific region serving over 40 million passengers a year. This is announced by the Airports Council International (ACI) – a trade association of 1,953 member airports across 176 countries – for its Airport Service Quality (ASQ) ratings it conducts every year. Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) operated and managed by GVK MIAL shared the spot with Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) for the World’s Best Airport for customer experience. They were selected by millions of passengers in a survey carried out by ACI. The Hyderabad airport became the number one in the 5-15 million passengers per annum category for the year 2017. As part of the ACI’s worldwide programme, passengers were surveyed across international airports for their feedback on 34 key performance indicators including airport access, check-in, security screening, restrooms, stores and restaurants. This year an unprecedented 16 airports were first-time winners, which reflects the increasingly competitive airport industry operating environment, where continuous service improvement is a key ingredient in business performance. These include Indore and Ahmedabad apart from Athens, Zagreb and Bandung.  

Seychelles Tourism Board is set to conduct roadshows at Kolkata, Pune and Bengaluru. The pre-fixed meetings format which was introduced last year will continue this year as well. Sherin Francis, CEO, Seychelles Tourism Board, says, “Last year’s roadshow allowed top agents to meet all partners in a quick pre-fixed meeting of 15 minutes each in a round-robin flow. This no-frills format focused on serious business generation and ensured that every agent invited could spend quality time with every partner from Seychelles.” For 2018, the tourism board plans to conduct workshops with its key B2B partners in cities of Raipur, Indore, Kochi, Coimbatore, Baroda, Surat and Rajkot. “We will also continue to meet and educate agents in main cities that will include Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata. We plan to support tour operators with incentive-based trainings to encourage bigger numbers to Seychelles,” Francis adds. Seychelles Tourism Boards recently hosted an appreciation evening in Mumbai to acknowledge high performers from the travel trade in association with Air Seychelles. India emerged as the seventh-largest source market for Seychelles with an arrival of 13,518 tourists from India in 2017 which indicated a 23 per cent growth compared to 2016. In 2018, the tourism board expects a similar percentage growth.  

Oman Air has deployed the new Boeing 737 MAX on its recently launched Delhi-Muscat route. The new B737 MAX is equipped with 12 new Business Class seats with large 17-inch touch screen monitors and all the amenities needed for the busy road warrior such as individual power and USB points. The 150 seat Economy Class cabin will also undergo a significant refresh with new interiors, 10.2-inch Thales Gen V touch-screen monitors, high power USB outlets for each triple seats and individual USB outlets for every guest. H.E. Dr Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Futaisi, Chairman, Oman Air, said, “The Boeing 737 MAX is at the forefront of aviation technology and amongst the most efficient planes in the sky today. Oman Air has put an order of 30 MAX aircraft and this is the first aircraft delivery of this order.”

After launching its new office in New Delhi in partnership with RL Group, Oman Air is now planning to open offices in Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. Sunil V.A., Regional Vice President-ISC, Oman Air along with Chetan Gupta, Chairman, RL Group; Varun Mohindra, Head of Sales & Marketing, RL Group and Vijay Bhatia, President, Bird Group were present for the inauguration. “We have 162 flights operating from India, all connect well to the destinations. With our focus on Europe and Europe GCC, we are now planning to sell the east. We are not just dependent on the online network but also looking at the offline too.” said Sunil V.A. Oman is currently focusing to develop MICE segment in 2018 with a launch of its new airport on March 20, 2018.

Vistara has announced double daily flights between Kolkata and Chennai, as well as a direct same aircraft service to Kochi via Chennai, starting March 25, 2018. The airline has increased its frequencies between Kolkata and Delhi with the launch of a third daily flight to the national capital. With these additions, Vistara will connect Kolkata directly with Delhi, Chennai, Port Blair (Andamans) and Kochi. Customers from Kolkata can also connect via Delhi to many other domestic and international destinations, including Chandigarh, Srinagar, Jammu, Amritsar and Lucknow domestically, and multiple cities internationally through Vistara’s 21 international interline partners. Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara, said, “The launch of these new routes and flights from Kolkata reflects the commitment Vistara has to Kolkata, and of the positive response we have received to our flights from the city. Our Kolkata flights have high loads in all classes, and we are truly grateful to our customers for placing their trust in us and making us their airline of choice in such a short span of time.”

Avalon Waterways is set to expand in India in 2019, offering cruise tours that visit the country’s Golden Triangle and sail on the Ganges River. Avalon’s 13-day India itineraries will begin in Delhi and also visit Agra and Jaipur. Passengers will then fly to Kolkata, where they’ll board their ship and travel north on the Hooghly, a tributary of the Ganges. The river portion of the cruise will visit small cities such as Kalna, Matiari, Murshidabad and Mayapur. The line will charter Ganges Voyager, a 36-passenger vessel formerly used by Vantage Deluxe World Travel for its India trips. The cruises begin in February 2019 and will also run in September, October and November 2019.  

Air India has introduced a non-stop flight from New Delhi to Amritsar in Punjab and Amritsar to Birmingham in the United Kingdom. The inaugural flight was flagged off from Amritsar airport by Vijay Sampla, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment in the presence of other dignitaries including Pankaj Srivastava, Director, Air India along with Shwait Malik and Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Member of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectively. The direct flight is scheduled to operate twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Amritsar-Delhi route. The Dreamliner aircraft AI 117 will take off from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 11:20 am and is scheduled to reach Amritsar at 12:25 am. After a break, the flight will then depart from Amritsar at 1:55 pm and is scheduled to reach Birmingham at 5:15 pm. The return flight will take off from Birmingham at 6:45 pm and reach Amritsar the next day at 7:45 am. After a brief break, the flight will depart for Amritsar at 9:15 am and will arrive at Delhi at 10:30 am. Source: ANI  

South African Tourism brought down a 60-member delegation for a 5-city roadshow to India, which successfully completed its Delhi-leg with back-to-back business meetings and networking with the travel trade in the city. The 15th edition of the roadshow has been held in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi and will be travelling to Ahmedabad after that. Hanneli Slabber, Regional General Manager, Asia/Australasia/Middle East, South African Tourism, said, “The Indian market has not just grown considerably since our entry in 2005, demands of Indian travellers are in a constant and rapid state of evolution even today. This makes cross sharing of insights, trends and observations between our Indian and South African partners extremely crucial. We have had South African products being tailored to suit these specific needs as a testament of the value proposition we see in the market.” Alpa Jani, Acting Hub-Head, Middle Easst/India/South East Asia, South African Tourism, said, “We have always recorded an outstanding response from the Indian travel trade and are eagerly looking forward to seeing the positive impact this Roadshow will have towards driving Indian traveller traffic to South Africa in 2018.”