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.

Sharing details about the India-Germany flights under the two-month air bubble arrangement, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted ‘Lufthansa will operate four days a week from Delhi, three days a week from Mumbai and three days from Bengaluru. Air India will operate five weekly flights from Delhi and two every week from Bengaluru to Frankfurt’.

It was an important day for the Goa International Airport with Air India starting its direct flight LHR-GOI-LHR on its Boeing 787. It will initially be once a week, and then twice a week from November under the new India-UK air bubble. Goa will now be connected to London directly.

AirAsia India inducts a new aircraft to its fleet as it expects sustained pax growth in the coming quarter. The airline will go ahead with its planned induction of five fully-owned A320 Neo aircraft with CFM engines in the next few months. It had firmed up these orders before the pandemic. This will bring down the average fleet age to around three years. The airline has opened new direct routes such as Mumbai-Ranchi, Mumbai-Bhubaneswar, Mumbai-Guwahati.

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) and TravTalk is set to bust all myths regarding Tax Collected at Source (TCS) with the webinar ‘Understanding TCS’, which will be held today at 11 am. The webinar will allow travel professionals to understand what TCS is, how it will impact them and if it is taking away their business. To register, contact Jaspreet Kaur at 9650196532 or Jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.

Visit Utah will conduct it’s first-ever presentation for the Indian travel trade today at 11am. Rachel Bremer, its Tourism Global Markets Director, will highlight the state’s must-visit spots and its appeal to the Indian clientele. To sign up, contact Jaspreet Kaur on 9650196532 or jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.    

The next edition of the International Tourism Fair, FITUR 2021, will now be held from 19 to 23 May next year, as agreed by IFEMA and the FITUR Organising Committee. This decision was taken to preserve the high international impact of this event at a time when trade fairs play a critical role in tourism recovery.  

Sharing its views on the recent changes in TCS on Twitter, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) stated, ‘TCS will kill the outbound tour market and the changes in LTC will kill the domestic tour market. Government actions are not in sync with our needs. No hand-eye coordination between government speeches and action.’