Thomas Cook India will showcase business opportunities for travel agents and the benefits of its ‘Assured’ Safe Travel Program in a webinar on November 3, 2020 at 3pm. Inviting the trade to this, Romil Pant, Senior Vice President – Holidays, Thomas Cook India, says, “We look forward to each one of you joining us on the occasion as we talk about the Thomas Cook ‘Assured’ Program – a unique initiative along with Apollo Clinics to provide assurance to all your customers who travel through us. We will also be sharing information about our specialised packages across the country that your clients can travel to at the best possible prices in the most safe and secured manner. We promise you a lot of interaction and fun during the webinar as we give all participants vouchers worth Rs 2,000 for your forward travel as well as a live auction.” To participate, contact Jaspreet Kaur at jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call 9650196532.

World Dream, Dream Cruises’ 150,695 gross ton megaship, arrived in Singapore on October 25 with 187 crew members aboard who have completed their 14-day quarantine on the cruise ship prior to arrival in Singapore. The crew will undergo a further series of mandatory COVID-19 testing as stipulated by the local authorities and are required to test negative before signing-up for active duty. Prior to her arrival in Singapore, World Dream has been on hiatus in Rotterdam, the Netherlands after being taken out of service in early February. The cruise ship will undergo thorough cleaning and sanitization prior to her inaugural ‘Super Seacation’ sailings on November 6, to ensure the health and safety of all passengers on board. World Dream will be the newest built cruise ship to call Singapore home and will be the first cruise ship to restart service in the Lion City.  

The Ship/Ferry Owners Association in Andaman & Nicobar Islands has requested the government to remove restrictions on flight movements in the region as no tourist movement has picked up despite South Andaman being open for tourism since Sept 27. The administration is currently allowing only 2 flights per day into the islands. In an appeal to home ministry and tourism minister, trade associations IATO and FHRAI have also asked to restart inter-island transport and ferries between islands.  

Geoffrey JW Kent, Founder and Co-Chairman, Abercrombie & Kent, said during the on-going Future Hospitality Summit, “Travellers will want to know that they will be in a safe environment. They will do shorter trips with private aircrafts or helicopters amidst nature. I think that will be the first thing that will come back. People will ask for tailor-made, highly personalised trips where they can ask questions at any time and some guarantee that they can get back easily if something goes wrong.”

Multiple travel trade associations will come together on Saturday, October 31 to participate in a bike rally titled ‘Celebrate Goa’s Tourism’ to show the country as well as the global markets that the state is now open for tourism. Associations such as TAAI, TAFI, IATO, and SKAL Goa led by TTAG will be part of the rally that will travel from north Goa to south Goa. Goa Tourism will also be part of this.

Pankaj Kumar, Owner of Patna-based Travel Point, has enjoyed playing in the Fantasy League. He says, “Not only that, I even enjoyed watching the matches even more after participating in this. We have been working with Tripjack for some time and realise that their deals for flights and hotels are very competitive. Their website is also very user friendly. I particularly like the format of the ticket which we can print from their website for our customer.” Top winners get air tickets sponsored by AirAsia and hotels stays every week. Visit tripjack.com now!

SpiceJet has become the first Indian airline to operate a non-stop flight between Kolkata and Chittagong. It has launched eight new flights to Bangladesh under the air bubble agreement between the two countries, adding Chittagong as its eleventh international destination. It will deploy a mix of its Boeing 737 and Bombardier Q400 aircraft on all these routes. All flights will commence from November 5, 2020.

Angel Llull Mancas, Vice President & Managing Director (Asia Pacific), Booking.com, said in his keynote address at ITB Asia, that one of the things to do in the new reality is instil trust in the minds of air travellers and create content accordingly. He revealed that 87% of APAC consumers expect to make changes to the way they travel, while 60% of them increasingly use the words ‘clean’ and ‘hygiene’ in their search.

According to a recent survey by Travel Consul, to study the impact of COVID-19 on the industry and the future recovery of global travel distribution, 42% of the respondents said that though their country reopened cautiously, the epidemic was still on the rise. More than 1,000 travel executives (tour operators and agency owners) participated from more than 20 countries in the global survey.

Hermione Joye, Sector Lead, Travel and Vertical Search, APAC, Google, in her keynote address at the ITB Asia, is that the demand for staycation in the APAC region is very high. “The demand for staycation is three times the demand since January, which is great news for hotels and operators across the board. This means that its important to focus on messaging and what’s top of the mind of the travellers now—the leisure experience,” she shared.