Tag Archives: President

Hilton has announced the appointment Matt Fry as Senior Vice President—Development in Asia Pacific (APAC). Effective August 6, 2018, Fry will oversee the team responsible for the overall development strategy for APAC. “We are thrilled to have Matt join our team and oversee the strategic growth in APAC,” said Ian Carter, President—Global Development, Architecture, Design and Construction, Hilton. “His appointment represents our commitment to building on our tremendous success and achievements there. Fry’s extensive experience in the real estate and development industry will be invaluable as we continue to expand our global footprint in this region.” A seasoned professional, Fry brings with him to Hilton over 20 years of experience in the real estate and development industry with nearly 18 years leading diverse teams at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Most recently, Fry served as the head of global real estate operations and America’s real estate at WeWork, a company growing rapidly around the world to provide shared workspaces with a strong emphasis on community for entrepreneurs, freelancers, small businesses and large enterprises. “I am excited to be joining the world’s most hospitable company and overseeing the development efforts for APAC,” said Fry. “Hilton has had incredible growth and the best-performing portfolio of brands in the business. This is a testament to the incredible global development team, which I am eager to work with during this exciting time for the company and industry.” Fry will be based in Hilton’s APAC regional office in Singapore and will report to Ian Carter, president, global development, architecture, design and construction.

The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), recently held its networking meeting in Delhi. Speaking at the event, Anup Nair, President, SITE said, “We have invited people from different fields of the industry. We are hoping to introduce SITE to them and bring the India chapter to limelight. We have 40 members in India, and with more people being aware of the value of this membership, I hope there will be more traction.” On the value of this membership, he said, “The value is in education in the field of incentive travel. Since incentive travel is such a powerful tool for driving business results. So incentive travel business results is what SITE is about, giving education to use incentive travel to drive business results.” Shoba Mohan, Founder-Partner, RARE India has been appointed as the Director Communication for SITE India chapter. She said, “When I learnt of what SITE does globally, it just seemed like the kind of things we love to do at RARE. We would be definitely doing the SITE members meet every month. SITE believes in a lot of education content, empowering people with a lot of knowledge based around incentives. That is something we will be focusing on.”  

KJ Alphons, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism, Government of India, has launched the Indian Adventure Tourism Guidelines along with Rashmi Verma, Secretary, Tourism; Satyajeet Rajan, Director General, Tourism; Suman Billa, Joint Secretary, Tourism and Swadesh Kumar, President, Adventure Tourism Association of India (ATOAI). A total of 26 activities have been covered in the guidelines including land, air and water based activities. The guidelines have been put in place to make the unorganised sector to adopt them. These guidelines will be reviewed every three months. In an effort to make adventure sports safer, the set of guidelines lists out the basic minimum standards required for adventure tourism activities in India. Adventure tourism has grown rapidly over the past few years playing a vital role in the economic growth of India as well as attracting a large number of travellers from across the globe to the country. The sole aim is to help adventure tour operators understand and execute safety guidelines in a better manner. These guidelines cover activities like mountaineering, trekking, bungee jumping, paragliding, kayaking, scuba diving, snorkelling, river rafting and many other sports.

Lemon Tree Hotels has recently announced the formal opening of Lemon Tree Hotel, Banjara Hills, its fourth hotel in Hyderabad. The hotel is strategically located adjacent to CARE hospital, in close proximity to major commercial hubs and popular malls. It is easily accessible from RGIA Airport, and is only a 45 minutes drive from Hyderabad Railway station. The hotel is conveniently located near popular tourist places like Birla Mandir, the Necklace Road and a short drive from the Secretariat, the Assembly and various heritage sites like Charminar, Mecca Masjid and Golconda Fort. Commenting on the launch, Vikramjit Singh, President, Lemon Tree Hotels said, “A very demand driven micro-market with immense business potential, Banjara Hills is an urban commercial centre of importance. We look forward to welcoming our discerning guests here. With this opening, Lemon Tree Hotels further strengthens its footprint in the city.” Lemon Tree Hotels, Banjara Hills will have 85 rooms and will cater to travellers looking for value-for-money accommodations in Hyderabad. Each room has been tastefully decorated and suited to meet the specific needs of a business traveller with a full sized working desk and an ergonomic executive chair, to make business-on-the-go productive. With this new opening, Lemon Tree now holds a cumulative inventory of 663 rooms in the city.

The Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) has announced that it will conduct its next annual convention in Cape Town from August 11-14, 2018. These details were shared by Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI, who said, “The convention will be followed by a three-night post-convention tour for our members and we urge them to block these dates at their earliest.” Responding to the issue of the water crisis that the mainstream media had reported, he added, “There is absolutely no problem with water there. Tourism has not been affected at all and the industry is more than equipped to handle this situation. We have a local partner helping us with the logistics for this.” Vakharia added that the team will finalise the convention theme and agenda soon.

The Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI) has inaugurated its Punjab and Haryana Chapter today. Manmeet Singh, Proprietor, Sky High Tours and Travels is the new chapter chairperson, as informed by P P Khanna, President, ADTOI. In total, the chapter will comprise 20 active members and also expects another 15 to 20 members. Delhi-NCR is not going to be included in the chapter. This is exclusively for the Haryana segment. The chapter is going to get launched exclusively for the places left unexplored. It will encourage rural, village, agro based areas of the state and make people aware about unexplored places. The association will work with the government and local state tourism boards to promote these places. Khanna also plans to open the North East chapter to showcase the rural and tribal areas and promote them before the country.

Travel Agents Association of India – Northern Region (TAAI-NR) recently held a meeting for its members at ITC Maurya, New Delhi. Gaurav Dogra, Secretary, TAAI-NR, said, “We discussed various queries of the members and updated them about TAAI Connect. TAAI Connect will help empower the members to have their own websites and mobile apps for better customer services.” Anil Khaitan, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry was also present to share the highlights of MoU signed between TAAI and PHD Chamber of Commerce, and how they would help to overcome the obstacles faced by TAAI members in their respective business.

The Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan has signed an MoU with the Federation of Hospitality and Tourism of Rajasthan (FHTR) for organising the ‘Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart’ 2018. The event will be held from July 20-22 at the B.M. Birla Auditorium in Jaipur. The Department of Tourism will be the host state partner for the event. The MoU was signed between the Additional Director Tourism, Sanjay Pande and the President, FHTR, Bhim Singh in Jaipur. The chief guest on the occasion Chief Secretary, Rajasthan, Nihal Chand Goel said that the primary objective of ‘Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart’ is to exclusively focus on the domestic tourists within Rajasthan from various parts of India. “The vision 2020 initiated by the CM had an objective of five crore tourist footfall in the state by the year 2020. But we have attained close to five crore tourists in the year 2017 itself and with new initiatives like this travel mart, we’d be able to achieve the set goal and probably outperform our own predicted numbers,” he said. President, FHTR, Bhim Singh said the sole objective is to increase tourism in Rajasthan by organising numerous road shows across the country. The event is also supported by HRAR, IHHA, RATO and ADTOI.

The Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) conducted a member’s meet in Mumbai last week to introduce the new team to the members in the Western Region. Present at the event were the association’s Executive Committee (EC) led by its President, Mahendra Vakharia. He said, “We have decided to have the EC meeting once a month on every second Saturday so everyone can plan their month accordingly. It will be held in different cities but predominantly in Delhi and will rotate between Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.” Speaking about the association’s upcoming convention, he said, “It is shaping up very well. We will announce the name of the country in a week. We are doing it with the support of the destination’s tourism board and it will be held sometime in August or September 2018. The team will start working on the logistical details now like airlines, hotels, etc.” The next EC meeting will be held on May 14, 2018 in New Delhi. The EC members had met earlier in the day to discuss the plan of action for the association as well as its upcoming convention. Ajay Sengar, Chapter Chairman – Western India, OTOAI, who is from the tier city of Akola in Maharashtra, was also present at the networking event. Some other EC members had flown down from New Delhi including Shravan Bhalla and Rajeev Sabharwal, along with General Secretary Chitra Bhatia.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has appointed Bird Travels, the Airline Management Services arm of Bird Group as its local representative in India. The association marks the airline’s latest step in developing its sales distribution network within the Indian market. The appointment of Bird Travels is part of the intensive preparations undertaken by Philippine Airlines to realise its firm plans to commence operations to India by winter 2018. Reinforcing the airline’s growing confidence in the market, Bird Travels is responsible for all the airline’s sales, marketing and ticketing activities in India through its centrally located headquarters in New Delhi. “India’s tourism industry is expanding rapidly and we’re already seeing a steady flow of leisure and business travellers flying between India and Philippines. Bird Group is a veteran in air travel management and we are challenging them to capitalise on their strength and capabilities to help launch our upcoming flights to New Delhi and Mumbai,” said Ryan Uy, Vice President – Sales, Philippine Airlines. “Armed with our extensive local knowledge and experienced team, Bird Travels is well-equipped and committed to promote the airline’s presence in the country,” said Vijay Bhatia, President, Bird Group. PAL’s planned services from New Delhi and Mumbai to Manila will enable India-based travellers to easily access over 31 destinations in the Philippines, out of PAL’s hubs in Manila, Clark, Cebu and Davao.