Tag Archives: Pune

Through its upcoming properties in Kochi and Sriperumbudur, AccorHotels will further highlight its focus on catering to the growing base of business and leisure travellers. Jean-Michel Cassé, Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia, AccorHotels, says, “Mid-segment hotels form a larger percentage of the total room inventory, also accounting for nearly 50 per cent of all the hotel rooms in the country. In this segment, we see a significant demand and supply gap, which we seek to bridge with our Novotel and ibis brands. We see this growing demand as a potential growth engine for the future. Our recent openings in Lucknow, Dwarka, Chennai OMR, Pune and Goa along with upcoming openings in Kochi and Sriperumbudur further highlight our focus to cater to the needs of a diversified growing base of business and leisure travellers alike.” In India, AccorHotels has a network of 46 hotels spanning across nine international brands in 22 cities.

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.

In an attempt to cater to the growing travel demands across markets, Ezeego1.com has recently opened a series of eight new franchise stores across Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Dhule, Uttarakhand, Guwahati and Amritsar. These stores will provide services like flight tickets, hotels, packages, rail holidays and cruise holidays through a single platform from a diverse mix of travel suppliers offering the best in class services. The company will provide the franchisee with an active marketing, technical and store development support. The marketing activity will include print and radio advertising, attractive and preferential commercials while the store development support will include store designing to reinforce the brand’s look and feel. Training and technical support will be provided to all franchisee staff to effectively address the changing technology and enhance customer interface. Neelu Singh, CEO and Director, Ezeego1, said, “Distribution is the key to success in the growing travel market and the opening of our new franchise stores in these markets will help us gain a foothold. Our offerings are curated from a slew of travel aggregators and we enable and distribute it through our platform.’’

Cathay Pacific Airways conducted a series of sales blitz and workshops in Ahmedabad, Pune and Mumbai to mark the reintroduction of its Premium Economy Class and the increase in capacity on flights from Mumbai. Cathay Pacific used to operate Premium Economy until October 2015. The airline has introduced the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft on the Mumbai–Hong Kong route from October 30. Rajesh Menon, Regional Sales & Marketing Manager-South Asia, Cathay Pacific, said, “We are thrilled to share these new developments in Cathay Pacific with our key trade and corporate partners. It is their support that has encouraged us to increase capacity on this route and reintroduce our Premium Economy cabin, which will provide even greater convenience and give our customers another reason for choosing Cathay Pacific.” Workshops were held for the travel trade fraternity in Mumbai which consisted of interactive sessions and covered a range of topics that include Cathay Pacific’s product and service, network and connections, loyalty programme, destination guides etc. This was followed by a week-long sales blitz that included a competition for the travel agents to upload their most fun picture on Cathay Pacific’s Facebook page. The Boeing 777-300ER aircraft will operate on the daily CX 660 service from Mumbai to Hong Kong and CX 663 flight from Hong Kong to Mumbai. This will mark a 21% increase in passenger capacity and 67% increase in cargo capacity out of Mumbai on Cathay Pacific flights.

Online travel portal, Yatra.com claims to have become the first in the online travel industry to offer self-drive car rental service on its platform in partnership with Revv Cars. Diversifying its product offerings, this alliance will allow travellers to book their local and inter-city self-driven transport on Yatra’s mobile app. Currently, the feature is live in nine cities namely Delhi/NCR, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Vizag. On every booking, customers can save up to 5% using their eCash as well as can earn eCash up to Rs 1000 on booking made above Rs 10,000. Manish Amin, Co-founder & CIO, Yatra.com, “The concept of self-driven cars is gaining popularity especially amongst the millennials and experience seekers. With self-drive option now available on the Yatra app, we are further strengthening our commitment towards offering all kinds of travel solutions for all kinds of travellers. We are confident that this new product will enable us to add more value to our existing as well as potential customer base.” In a similar collaboration, Yatra had launched a first-of-its kind in-app integration with Uber, for its customers to book their local and intra-city transport directly through the Yatra app. Yatra also offers Chauffeur-driven Outstation Cabs for inter-city travel in more than 300 cities.

In its last leg for the year, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) hosted it’s first ever showcase in the city of Pune. The Pune edition of GPS witnessed a response of 900 plus registrations. The first day which included product presentations and GST session by CA Manish Gadia, Tax expert, GMJ &Co had a attendance of over 350 plus attendees. Apart from buyers from Pune the attendees include buyers coming from cities like Nashik, Satara, Sangli, Kohlapur, Ahmednagar, Baramati, Karad etc. Next year, GPS will continue to showcase at Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Kochi and Pune. GPS will also be introducing Lucknow as a new city in 2018 and is also looking for other probable cities to host the exhibition.

Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Airlines Group organised a six-city road show over 10 days across India and Colombo with participation from 39 Singapore stakeholders and over 800 in-market travel agents. India continues to be the fourth-largest source market in terms of visitor arrivals and third-largest tourism receipts generating market for Singapore. The roadshow in India commenced on July 10 in Pune followed by Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata and Hyderabad and concluded in Colombo on July21. Themed ‘Growing Tourism into Singapore, Together’, the delegation was led by G.B Srithar, Regional Director, South Asia Middle East & Africa, STB; Adrian Kong (Area Director, South Asia, Mumbai; and Yuemin Li-Misra, Area Director, South Asia, Delhi. The roadshows featured stakeholders from Singapore representing hotels, airlines, integrated resorts, attractions, Destination Management Companies (DMC) and cruise operators interacting and networking with STB’s travel and trade partners in India. There was also an update session on Singapore’s upcoming tourism offerings as well as Singapore Airlines Group’s range of cabin products and experiences. Srithar spoke about fostering collaborations with the travel trade partners especially from secondary cities across India. He said, “India has always been an important market for us. For the second time in a row, Singapore received more than one million Indian visitors in 2016. As the region’s middle-class becomes more affluent, there will be immense opportunities for international outbound travel and tourism, especially among families, working millennials and incentive movements. Through the roadshows, we seek to renew our ties with the travel trade, entrenching existing partnerships and forging new ones. Through these partnerships, we seek to bring Singapore’s tourism offerings to our target audiences through creative promotions, and in the process, ensuring meaningful results for …

GoAir starts two additional flights out of Pune. Effective May 19, the airline will start daily flights from Pune to Bengaluru and Kolkata. The airline will now provide non-stop connectivity from Pune to Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Nagpur, Delhi, and Kolkata. The city of Pune and state of Maharashtra both play an important role in GoAir’s network. The new routes aim at connecting Pune across its network and providing passengers flexible options in planning their travel.

VFS Global, in partnership with United Kingdom Visas and Immigration, inaugurated a new Visa Application Centre in Pune to allow travellers from the city easy access to the United Kingdom. The newly opened centre offers a number of benefits to customers in Pune including more application counters to make it quicker and easier for customers to submit their visa applications. In addition the VAC has a new Premium Lounge which offers complimentary drinks and a separate lounge so that customers can apply for their visas more quickly and in more luxurious surroundings. The VAC is co-located with the Schengen Visa Application Centre to make it more straightforward for customers to apply for both visas at the same time. Speaking at the launch, Nick Crouch, Regional Director-South Asia, UK Visas and Immigration, said, “The UK continues to welcome more and more visitors from India. The latest visa figures show that over 395,000 Indian visit visas were issued for UK last year, a six per cent increase from 2015. We hope to see even higher numbers for 2017. India is an incredibly important market to the UK which is why we continue to make improvements to our visa service. Last year we introduced a new Visit Visa Application form which for the first time is translated into four regional languages and allows customers to download a completed Schengen visa form. We will continue to listen to feedback from our customers in order to make further improvements where we can.” Vinay Malhotra, Chief Operating Officer- Middle East and South Asia, VFS Global, added, “VFS Global and UK Visas and Immigration continue to invest and improve the visa service we offer Indian customers. Due …

Musafir.com has announced the launch of its third technology centre in Pune. Musafir.com is looking to double its technology team by the end of the year. The Pune centre will complement the technology and product teams that are already operating out of centres in the UAE and Mumbai. “Musafir.com was founded with the promise of a stellar user experience backed by the best technology. The establishment of our third technology centre in Pune, reinforces our commitment to this promise. Our aim is to double the strength of our engineering team by the end of the year, and herald a new generation of innovative user experiences for our travelers,” said Albert Dias, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Musafir.com. “The launch of our technology centre reiterates our ever growing focus on the Indian market. Technology is a key ingredient in the growth recipe for any business today; we understand and appreciate this more so than ever, being a travel ecommerce player. Technology is core to our long term strategy and-our technology centre in Pune is an essential cog in the wheel that will propel Musafir.com through the next decade of exponential growth.” said Rajesh Pareek – Group CEO, Musafir.com. Musafir.com has plans to expand further in India and add more countries to its GCC portfolio and this technology and product team based in Pune will help to accelerate the delivery of next-generation web and mobile applications, along with innovative products and solutions for travellers worldwide.