Tag Archives: Delhi

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.”

Vistara has launched a daily direct service between Delhi and Chennai and is set to double its frequency between the two cities from March 1, offering convenient same-day return options in both directions. Besides, the airline will fly daily direct between Chennai and Port Blair from March 1, and will further expand its operations from the city from March 25 with daily direct flights between Chennai and Kochi and double daily flights between Chennai and Kolkata. Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara said, “Many of our customers had been waiting for us to bring ‘the new feeling of flying’ to Chennai, and we’re pleased to finally inaugurate our service to the city. We may have been late in coming to Chennai, but our aggressive expansion plan from the city truly signals its importance to Vistara. The new Chennai service would offer additional connections through Delhi to many additional destinations including Srinagar, Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bagdogra, and Guwahati.”

With a focus on the Indian market, SriLankan Airlines intends to increase its frequencies to 13 flights per week to Delhi and 14 flights a week to Mumbai. According to Chinthaka Weerasinghe, Country Manager, SriLankan Airlines, “We are keen on increasing the destinations and flight frequencies in India as the demand is constantly on the rise. With the new development ventures, we anticipate significant passenger numbers from our key contributors to inbound tourism traffic that includes India, China, Europe, Australia and the Maldives.” India has been a vital partner in SriLankan Airlines’ route network from the early days since it is Sri Lanka’s number one source of inbound tourist traffic. Today, the airline directly operates to 14 Indian destinations with a total of 135 flights a week. Weerasinghe adds, “The Indian government authorities and related state institutions have always been a firm supporter to all SriLankan Airlines and Sri Lanka Tourism projects.”

South African Tourism (SAT) began its five-city roadshow from February 12-19 with Mumbai, followed by Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi and Ahmedabad. The 60-member strong participation from South Africa’s travel trade industry and scale is a reflection of the strong consumer demand witnessed from India. One of the key focus areas is to go create awareness about new destinations such as Oudtshoorn, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Port Elizabeth and the Drakensberg region. Hanneli Slabber, Regional General Manager, Asia/Australasia/Middle East, SAT, said, “The demands of Indian travellers are in a constant and rapid state of evolution. 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 East/India/South East Asia, SAT, 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. We are also focusing on customising our engagements and product offerings to suit the unique requirements from each of our target regions within India.”  

‘Bharat Parv’, an event conducted by the Ministry of Tourism has been promoting the rich cultural diversity of India whilst ensuring wider participation of the general public. The event kicked off on January 26 at Red Fort, Delhi as part of the Republic Day 2018 celebrations. Rashmi Verma, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism inaugurated the event. The highlights of the event include display of Republic Day parade tableaux, performances by the Armed Forces Bands, a multi-cuisine food court, craft mela, cultural performances from different regions of the country and photo exhibition by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP). The cultural performances include choreographed tribal dances and music as well as performances by cultural troupes from different states. The food court has stalls set up by the states/UTs, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) showcasing street food from different regions as well as by the Institutes of Hotel Managements and ITDC. The Crafts Mela with 50 stalls showcases the diverse handicrafts of the country, arranged by the State Governments and Ministry of Textiles through the office of the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts.

The Ministry of Tourism is set to organise ‘Bharat Parv’ at the Red Fort, Delhi from January 26-31, 2018 as part of Republic Day 2018 celebrations to promote India’s rich cultural diversity and ensure wider participation of the public. The highlights of the event include display of Republic Day parade tableaux, performances by the Armed Forces Bands, a multi-cuisine food court, craft mela, cultural performances from different regions of the country and photo exhibition by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP). The cultural performances include choreographed tribal dances and music as well as performances by cultural troupes from different states. The food court will showcase street food from different regions while the craft mela with 50 stalls will display diverse handicrafts of the country. A live ‘Cookery Demonstration Area’ is being set up in the food court to promote cuisines of different states. The Bharat Parv event will be inaugurated at 5.00 pm on January, 26 and would be open for public till 10.00 pm. The event is open for public and entry is free with a valid identity proof.

Akquasun Group is set to go digital in terms of operations in 2018. Till now, the portal offered was an integrated system but going forward, the destination management company (DMC) plans to offer its travel partners its own inventory on the digital platform, informs Sujit Nair, Group Managing Director, Akquasun Group at the company’s Delhi roadshow. The DMC is currently conducting its four-city roadshow covering Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai. The unique element of this year’s event is the partnership between Tourism Malaysia and Akquasun Group, in which the tourism board has partnered with the DMC to promote Malaysia in India. “We will be buying up our own inventory and offer the same on the online platform. We recently hosted a curtail raiser at IITT Mumbai for the same and the company will be coming out with a host of different technology tools useful for travel agents,” he said. As many as 40 partners from 18 destinations represented by the group participated at the roadshow. According to Nair, the market in Kolkata was very responsive with as many as 250 travel agents in attendance at the roadshow.

To reach out to the domestic market, Kerala Tourism is organising a string of Partnership Meets in Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Kolkata, Patna and Delhi in the 1st quarter of 2018. At the Partnership Meet in Mumbai on January 09, Kadakampally Surendran, Minister for Co-Operation, Tourism and Devaswom, Government of Kerala, said, “To ensure the accomplishment of an ambitious target of a 100% increase in arrival of foreign tourists and 50% in domestic tourists in five years, a tourism regulatory authority has been formed. This would help put a stop to any unhealthy practices and guarantee better intervention of the Tourism Department through scrutiny and a licensing system.” The new Kerala Tourism Policy also forms a major highlight of this year’s domestic campaign. The revamped fare with an array of new tourism products was showcased at Mumbai today.