The domestic passenger air traffic in India has recorded very strong growth, up 25.1 per cent, during November 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. This was revealed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which released global passenger traffic results for November 2015, showing a continued strong traffic growth above the 10 year average rate of 5.6 per cent. The improvements in industry load factors have been largely driven by domestic markets, particularly in India, where there has been a significant improvement in matching capacity to demand and on-going economic strength, according to the report. Globally, domestic travel demand rose 6.4 per cent in November compared to November 2014 but results were mixed, with Brazil, Russia and Japan all showing declines. Total revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rose 5.9 per cent compared to November 2014. Though this is a weaker result than the October figure of 7.1 per cent but this has been termed as very healthy rate of growth despite factors which are likely to have a temporary affect. Data for the first ten months of the year show a 5 per cent decline in average fares in currency-adjusted terms. November capacity (available seat kilometres or ASKs) increased by 4.2 per cent, and load factor rose 1.3 percentage points to 78.0 per cent. “The airline industry is delivering solid financial and operational performance. The industry’s return on capital for 2015 and 2016 is expected to exceed its cost of capital, a very rare occurrence. This means we are on the path toward financial sustainability. Consumers are benefiting from lower fares, and airlines are able to invest in new aircraft that are more comfortable, quieter and more environmentally friendly,” …

Sharjah-based Air Arabia, has announced a change of GSA of 10 years – from Track India to Sharjah-based Cozmo Travel. Sachin Nene, Regional Manager – India, Air Arabia, announced this on Wednesday evening at a networking evening organised by the airline for its select trade partners in Mumbai. He said, “We will be moving from Track India after 10 years and appointing Cozmo Travel as our new GSA for India. We want to assure our trade partners that business will continue as usual.”  Also present at the occasion was Shalini Rajan, Head of Sales, Air Arabia, and Jamal Abdulnazar, CEO, Cozmo Travel, from Sharjah. A part of the Air Arabia Group, Cozmo has huge expansion plans for pan-India in 2016 with a minimum budget of Rs 10 crore.

AccorHotels has announced the opening of its third hotel in Chennai city- ibis Chennai City Centre. Located on the city’s arterial and historic, Mount Road, the 155-room property is a short drive to Chennai airport and within close proximity to several shopping and entertainment attractions. This is the third AccorHotel in Chennai city followed by ibis Chennai SIPCOT and Novotel Chennai SIPCOT in 2014. ibis Chennai City Centre offers modern, comfortable and well equipped ibis rooms, a restaurant, a lounge and bar area, The Hub. “The opening of the ibis Chennai City Centre is a strategic milestone for the ibis brand in India. Offering consistency, quality and affordability, the brand combines the ultimate comfort of modern and well-equipped rooms with the highest level of service for business and leisure travellers. The opening of ibis Chennai City strengthens our brand presence in Chennai and adds to the growing ibis network of 12 hotels in the region,” said Jean-Michel Cassé, Senior Vice President, Operations, AccorHotels India. J.B. Singh, President  & CEO, InterGlobe Hotels, said, “Chennai has a growing demand for quality affordable rooms, and the ibis brand innovates constantly to illustrate its values of modernity, comfort and availability. The opening of ibis Chennai City Centre further consolidate the strategic partnership between AccorHotels and InterGlobe with the aim to enhance the ibis network growth in India.”

GoAir has launched four new routes connecting Mumbai with Leh, and Bengaluru with three cities-Port Blair (Andaman & Nicobar Islands), Patna (Bihar), and Ranchi (Jharkhand). The Mumbai-Leh and Bengaluru-Port Blair routes will commence on March 27. The Leh flights will take off from Mumbai at 0400 and arrive in the Himalayan city at 0645. The return services will then depart from Leh at 0715 and arrive in Mumbai at 1115, with a brief stop in Srinagar. On the Port Blair route, flights will depart from Bengaluru at 1430 and arrive at 1715. The return flights will then leave Port Blair at 1125 and arrive back in Bengaluru at 1400. Additional frequencies will also be introduced on the routes from Delhi to Ranchi, Lucknow and Patna, and there will also be an extra flight between Mumbai and Srinagar. All the new flights will be operated using GoAir’s fleet of 180-seat, all-economy Airbus A320 aircraft.

Li Yaying, Deputy Director General, Marketing and International Cooperation Department, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), said that 674,000 Indian tourists visited China during January to December, 2015 and the mutual tourist visits is expected to exceed 1 million in 2016. Yaying said, “In 2015, a total of 120 million outbound trips were made by Chinese tourists, and the figure for India was also above 17 million. India has become a major emerging source of tourists to China.” After the success of ‘India Tourism Year’ in China which was celebrated last year, the opening ceremony of ‘China-India Tourism Year 2016’ will be held on January 14 at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. CNTA has also designed nearly a 100 tourism promotions and exchange activities for the year. These include promotional films, ads, Fam visits to China and tourism promotional activities themed with the Silk Route. A dedicated page for the ‘China-India Tourism Year 2016’ will be launched in English on the overseas promotion website of Chinese Tourism to give better access to information.

On the occasion of National Youth Day, the Ministry of Tourism (MOT) has launched new skill initiatives keeping in mind the need to improve service standards, a pre-requisite to attract larger number of tourists to India. The programme to make ‘Paryatak Mitra’ (Tourist Facilitators) is targeted at university students including those enrolled with the NCC and NSS, which will be implemented first at destinations identified under the PRASAD scheme of the Ministry of Tourism. This programme will attempt to inculcate appropriate tourism traits and knowledge among trainees to enable them to act as ‘Paryatak Mitra’. A similar programme will be started to appoint Tourist Facilitators in the Northeast. The duration of the programmes will range between four to 30 days and will be implemented by the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management. The programmes began their first batch on January 12, 2016. The Sensitisation Programme for Existing Service Providers at Varanasi will target to train boatmen, rickshaw pullers, pandas, porters, shopkeepers and street vendors (in and around Ghats and temples) to eventually achieve an improved tourist specific service ambience and to further the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.

At the first meeting of the National Medical and Wellness Tourism Promotion Board, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture (Independent Charge), Tourism (Independent Charge) and Civil Aviation, said that the board’s role is to act as a facilitator to tap the potential of medical and wellness tourism in an efficient way. Held on January 13, 2016 at Hotel Samrat New Delhi, Sharma said that their agenda is to provide a dedicated institutional framework to take forward the cause of promotion of medical, wellness, yoga and ayurveda tourism and any other format of the Indian system of medicine. The meeting was held in the presence of various officials from MOT, hospitals, associations, hospitality industry, wellness sector, to name a few, to identify strengths and issues, and to draw up short and long term strategies for marketing and promotion of medical and wellness tourism. The Board plans to build up a Data Bank of available resources in the field of Medical and Wellness services in the country and to develop mechanism to disseminate such information to the source markets.

The seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are going to conduct a combined roadshow in February along with OTM Mumbai. Haitham Mattar, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Authority, said at an event, “We have signed an agreement with the National Corporation for Tourism and Hotels to do a roadshow with them along with the Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, and other emirates to come together and promote the UAE as a destination with its various offer.” Ras Al Khaimah is targeting one million visitors by the end of 2018 and is eyeing the Indian market robustly.

The Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority conducted a press conference in New Delhi on January 12, 2016, in an attempt to target the Indian tourism market. “India is currently the fourth largest inbound market for the emirate, after Germany, Russia and the UK,” said Haitham Mattar, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority. Ras Al Khaimah witnessed 16,000 Indian tourist arrivals into the emirate in the previous year. “We have seen an incredible 81 per cent year on year growth in tourists from India. By the end of 2018, the sub-continent is expected to be a big contributor to the emirate’s vision to attract one million visitors. We are working towards spreading awareness and conducting events to increase our partnership with the travel trade in India,” added Mattar. Ras Al Khaimah is primarily a family destination which also offers business, MICE, leisure, adventure and luxury travel.

Thomas Cook will discontinue with brand Kuoni and rebrand it as SOTC India, which will operate independently, revealed Madhavan Menon, Chairman and MD Thomas Cook (India). Also, he revealed that Thomas Cook (India) will not be using the Thomas Cook brand after 2025. Talking of the new structure post the acquisition of Kuoni India, Menon said that the company has started the process of discontinuing the Kuoni brand in India. He said, “The Kuoni brand is available to us in India for one year and we plan to migrate to SOTC.” Kuoni’s outbound business will be known as SOTC India Pvt Ltd. SOTC will have an independent management team. It will continue to run the outbound business – packages holidays, corporate travel, MICE and domestic travel that will be launched. Thomas Cook India will de-merge SITA – Kuoni India’s inbound brand – and merge it with TCI. This company will be known as TCI, which will be headed by Dipak Deva , incorporate the three brands– TCI, SITA and Distant Frontiers. Further, he disclosed that The Thomas Cook India Group is allowed use of the Thomas Cook brand till 2025.  As part of its Brand Transition Strategy, the plan to hence leverage the strengths of these brands and draw up a strategy to replace the Thomas Cook brand in the long term.