Tag Archives: Mumbai

South African Tourism sets the pace for continued double digit growth in the coming year with its annual roadshow slated for this month. The roadshow will be held in Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai where suppliers from South Africa will network with Indian travel agents. Now in its 14th edition, the roadshow will start with Chennai on 30 January, and then go on to Bengaluru on 31 January, Delhi on 1 February and conclude in Mumbai on 3 February, 2017. About 10 per cent of the delegation will be first-timers and will include hotel chains, airlines, products, attractions, DMCs and local tourism offices. Indian agents will be able to meet representatives from boutique hotel chain Lion Roars Hotels & Lodges, adventure-focused attraction Tenikwa Wildlife, care-rental Multilayer Trade Corporation and DMC Africa Incoming. Domestic airline Safair has also signed up. Additionally, Air Seychelles (which many Indians use to fly to South Africa via Mahe) that is said to be starting a flight to Durban starting March will also be present. Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager, South African Tourism India, said, “Up until the third quarter of 2016, we noted that arrivals had grown by 26.6 per cent in comparison to 2015 and we hope to have closed the year at 27 per cent growth. By September 2016, our arrivals had hit 73,902. This makes India South Africa’s eighth-largest long-haul tourism source market.” The tourism board is expecting between 600-1,000 travel agents to attend the roadshow.

Japan will open 13 new visa application centers in India. The centers will be opened at Gurgaon, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Goa, Bengaluru, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Puducherry and Hyderabad. This was informed by Ryoichi Matsuyama, President, Japan National Tourist Office at the opening ceremony of the 2017 the year of Japan-India Friendly Exchanges and the Announcement of Japan-India Collaboration Film Project. “Last year Japan saw 120,000 Indian arrivals whereas 230,000 Japanese visited India. Though the number of Indians visiting Japan is steadily increasing, the current figure is yet modest despite the vast size and scale of India and more so given the long-standing relationship between the two countries,” said Matsuyama. The Japan-India Collaboration Film Project was also announced. The event was attended by Kenko Sone, Minister, Economic and Development, Embassy of Japan; Suresh Prabhu, Railway Minister, Government of India, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Ayog, Government of India, Kenchi Takano, Executive Director- Preparation Office for New Delhi, JNTO amongst others. His Excellency Kenji Hiramatsu, Ambassador of Japan to India added that there will be a number of cultural and tourism related events are planned to be held all around India in 2017.

redBus has launched its latest service, called Bus Hire, which would offer customers mini-buses or tempo-travellers if they are seeking to hire buses. Bus Hire will provide a one-stop access to leading chartered bus providers in a particular city who offer best-in-class vehicles and superior service quality. The platform gives transparent and all-inclusive prices along with value added information such as bus photos and convenient payment options to help customers make an informed and suitable choice. This service is presently available in seven cities across India- Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Ahmedabad and is soon being extended to other towns. The range of vehicles that customers can choose from is very extensive, and includes luxury buses, regular buses, mini buses, tempo travellers and cars. Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus.in, expressed his enthusiasm about the new service, commenting, “Often group travel such as corporate outings, weddings and pilgrimages require a full vehicle to be hired. There was no easy way for travellers to connect with multiple vehicle providers to hire a bus of their choice. With our new Bus Hire product, we aim to simplify the process by providing customers with a customised, transparent and quick method of evaluating and choosing among different vehicle options. For charter bus operators, it opens up another avenue for attracting customers and growing their business.” Once a customer provides basic details of his or her desired trip, the bus operators on redBus Bus Hire platform respond with quotations that are transparent and all-inclusive. The base fare, driver charges, tolls, permit fees and taxes are all specified in the quotations. Customers can also view images of the bus before they confirm a booking. Customers can …

Mumbai airport’s domestic Terminal 1B has been renamed as Terminal 1 (T1), effective from January 9. Terminal 1B handled low-cost airline flights which will now be operated from T1. The Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), which runs the airport, informed that this decision was taken to help in easy identification of the terminal and to ensure hassle-free transit for air travellers. At present, SpiceJet, Indigo and GoAir operate from this terminal. Vistara, Air India and Jet Airways operate from Terminal 2 (T2), which also caters to all international flights. MIAL further added that the shifting of Air India and Jet Airways to T2 has helped make transit between international and domestic flights convenient for transfer passengers, thereby saving time. (Source: Times of India)

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is planning to organise a day-long symposium in Mumbai in the third or fourth week of February 2017. The symposium will focus on issues like e-visas for inbound traffic, visa challenges for outbound traffic from India, GST and other topics that the Union Budget will touch upon. Sharing more details, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We will get experts to address our members who will be not from Mumbai but also from Pune and surrounding areas. We will also invite stakeholders like airlines and consulates. Topics are yet to be firmed up.” TAFI had conducted a similar symposium in New Delhi in October 2016 where it had also launched its new logo. “We want to replicate this in other metro cities as well and discuss topics that are relevant for that particular region,” Lulla added.

Jet Airways will deploy its higher seating capacity aircraft – 254-seater Airbus A330 in place of the existing Boeing 737- on two domestic and two international routes from January 2017 in order to cater to the growing passenger demand. While the wide-body service between Mumbai-Chennai-Mumbai is slated to begin from January 15, the airline will commence its Mumbai-Jeddah-Mumbai and Mumbai-Bangalore-Mumbai services from January 16 and the Mumbai-Kuwait-Mumbai service is scheduled to start from January 18. “The introduction of wide-body services on our key domestic routes allows Jet Airways to scale up capacity in response to increase in demand. The A330 aircraft is designed with a spacious cabin, greater leg-room, lie-flat beds in premiere,” said, Jayaraj Shanmugam, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways. The rolling out of the wide body aircraft with its two-cabin configuration of 18 seats in premiere (business) and 236 in economy class will also increase capacity on the key routes by as much as 50 per cent. Source: India Today

A North East desk in Mumbai will be set up to promote tourist and trade investment from Maharashtra and other western parts of country in the northeast region. This decision was taken at a meeting Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space held in Mumbai with members of Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC) and the Maharashtra State Tourism Minister. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the North East has lot much to offer, but the attributes remain unexplored because people outside are either not aware of it or do not find it convenient to venture. He further highlighted that a highly scenic destination like Shillong attracts more number of European and foreign tourists compared to domestic or Indian tourists because of lack of awareness in other parts of the country. Dr Jitendra Singh also proposed the idea of Medical Tourism and flagged the idea of combining tourism with the Start up India programme which could simultaneously help in engaging youth and generating employability.

Indonesian national carrier Garuda Indonesia has launched flights between Jakarta and Mumbai via Bangkok. The thrice weekly service is the first direct link between the two countries. Speaking on the occasion M Arif Wibowo, President and CEO, Garuda Indonesia, said, “We see India as a potential market and we see good traffic coming from Mumbai region. India to Indonesia market size is more than 3,00,000 travellers to Indonesia and around one-third of this traffic comes from Mumbai which is 1,00,000 and gets divided into two destinations 45 per cent to Bali and 55 per cent to Jakarta. At this stage we have started the flight from Jakarta to Mumbai keeping Bangkok as transit point and would consider having a direct flight as the market grows or even a direct flight from Bali to Mumbai. We may also look to start operations from Delhi and Chennai later, currently we will observe the growth pattern from Mumbai for the first three months and if we see an increase in demand we may increase the flight frequency from Mumbai to Jakarta.” The flight from Jakarta-Mumbai route via Bangkok will be flying every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The flight service will be operated by Garuda’s Boeing 738 aircraft with a two-class cabin configuration featuring its business class service concept and its best economy class. The aircraft is capable of carrying 156 passengers (12 Business Class seats and 144 Economy Class seats). The opening of Garuda Indonesia’s flight to Mumbai is part of its international network development program, especially in the South Asia region, as well as the manifestation of the airline’s commitment to continuously support the Indonesian government’s program to double the number of …

Garuda Indonesia has announced that they will be starting flight services from Mumbai to Jakarta from December 12. The prices of the flight will start from Rs. 27,600, and the flight would offer further connection to Bali from Jakarta. Bird Travels is the GSA for the airline in India.

Air India launched its first direct flight from Delhi-Madrid at a gala ceremony in Delhi, which was graced by P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Minister, Civil Aviation; Pankaj Srivastava, Director-Commercial, Air India; I Prabhakara Rao, Chief Executive Officer, Delhi International Airport; Ignacio Ducasse Gutierrez, Tourism Counselor, Embassy of Spain in India and Director, Tourism Office of Spain in India, Mumbai; and other dignitaries from the travel and tourism industry. Madrid is Air India’s ninth European destination and 42nd international destination. Srivastava addressed the gathering and said, “The nine-hour flight would be able to cut down the flying time to Madrid by 4-5 hours, and would offer further connections to South American countries like Argentina, Brazil, Columbia and Chile.” The thrice a week flight with a  B787 Dreamliner, offers a convenient departure at 1425hrs from Delhi and arrival at Madrid at 2020hrs. From Madrid the departure time is 2150hrs and arrival in Delhi at 1110hrs the next day.