Tag Archives: MD

IACC-NIC will host the 2nd Indo-US Services Summit tomorrow, July 31, with a session on travel, tourism and hospitality scheduled from 2:00-3:00 pm. Titled ‘Living with COVID – Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow’ and moderated by Ajay Bakaya, MD, Sarovar Hotels, the Chief Guest for the session will be Tourism Secretary Arvind Singh. Also in attendance will be Ross R Belliveau (Commercial Attache US Embassy), Ragini Chopra (InterGlobe Enterprises), Jyoti Mayal (TAAI) and Sudeep Jain (IHG).

Nigerian airline Air Peace plans to start operations in India in 2021 and has appointed Minar Group as its General Sales Agent in India. Air Peace will be the first Nigerian carrier to connect India with Lagos and other West African countries. “We’re gearing up to take a strategic positioning and close partnership with Air Peace,” says HS Duggal, MD, Minar Group of Companies.

Ankush Nijhawan, MD, Nijhawan Group, an avid cricketer himself, reveals that he had a great experience when in 2019 he got to witness India play Australia at the Oval and India play Pakistan at Old Trafford. “I think it’s a must for everybody to watch cricket in the UK. The VisitBritain Cricket Carnival is exciting, especially because people can play it on an App, and technology is something everybody is used to today.” To play, register on http://bit.ly/VisitBritainCricketCarnival or contact vartik.sethi@ddppl.com or +91 83684 28139.

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has launched a one-year long virtual exhibition, called GPS Connect, for global exhibitors and buyers from across India, which will start in April. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, shares, “It’s a year-long platform, and one can come for one-day or as many days they prefer. This virtual platform can culminate into a hybrid and physical event in future as well, as an when we require. Also, it will not be limited to just Tier-II and III agents, but will have buyers from across India. We have a following of over 50,000 travel professionals and we are expecting at least 8000-10,000 of them to register for the same. The buyers just need to do one-time registration, whereas the exhibitors would be from around the globe. Meetings can happen without any fear of getting COVID, as no one needs to travel.”

ARRA Hotel Group is on an expansion spree and has signed up 25 properties across India, which are under various stages of reinvention as per our standards. Anshu Malik, MD, ARRA Hotel Group, says, “We will operate the above properties under our flagship Brand Arra which is our upscale brand and Twist which is Budget young feel brand. We are opening 5 properties by February 2021 in Gurugram, Manesar, Jim Corbett, Nainital and Dehradun with 450-room inventory.”

Baywatch Travels has launched curated sailing experience brand Baywatch Sailzz. Manish Kriplani, MD, Baywatch Travels, announced the new venture, saying, “Baywatch Sailzz is our answer to fresh outdoor experiences, where we offer curated sailing experiences for birthday, dinner, sunrise, sunset cruise and other celebrations. We have our international medallist skipper Chinna Reddy who will assist with the entire experience around Chennai Harbour and the Bay of Bengal.”

Global Panorama Showcase has tied up with Airlines Technology by TWAI, to offer NDC (New Distribution Capability) by IATA to agents in India at an affordable price. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, says, “NDC technology is the new solution and is the new normal, and it will be very useful to more than 4,000 IATA agents.” To this, Trideep Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director, Airlines Technology by TWAI, adds, “Last couple of years, airlines have been pushing for NDC which allows them to distribute new things which they were not being able to do earlier. At the end of last year, we were in discussion with Varun Bansal, the CEO of Airlines Technology, as we were looking for enhancing our product offerings by having NDC on our platform. At the beginning of this year, we acquired Airlines Technology, and since then we have been merging everything with our platform. We are one of the largest NDC aggregators in the world. As of now, there are about 19 airlines on our platform, and we will have around 23 by the end of this year.”

Manish Kriplani, MD, Baywatch Travels, has launched Baywatch Stayzz, which include serviced luxury villas and houses for rent. “There was a huge void of having luxury full-service villas, where travellers can relax with having dedicated butler service, and housekeeper, chef and other resources at their disposal. We found that there was demand and availability for the same, which was a great prospect. We have 9 villas as of now and we plan to have 50 such villas in the next 2-3 months in Chennai. While some villas we are obtaining on lease, some are on revenue share, while for others we are only doing sales & marketing. While we have made PDF brochures now, we are preparing a very robust e-commerce website portal, where we are going to host all these villas and which will have all the information about them.”

Ravi Gosain, MD, Erco Travels, has said that with moratorium limit ending on 31st August, many travel companies must shut down. “Situation is very unfavourable for tourism industry. On 31st August, moratorium is ending, and most of the people, whether employees or employers took a moratorium and were expecting that something will roll out. However, things haven’t improved. From September onwards, I don’t think companies of any size are able to pay a single bill. Hence, this will be a huge setback. Hence, I am sure there will be many bankruptcies after this moratorium has ended,” he shared.

Ark Travels, a B2B company specialising in cruise representation business, has penetrated further into the non-cruising space with the acquisition of Outbound Konnections, spearheaded by Anjum Lokhandwala, who will continue as its Director. Kishan Biyani, MD, Ark Travels, says, “I felt this was the right time to enter into the non-cruise space. Along with Ark Travels, we can have a bouquet of products besides cruises, Club Med Resorts and Europamundo Vacations to offer to their B2B network without increasing overheads.”