Ajay Prakash, has been re-elected as the TAFI President for the new term in an online election held in Mumbai today. While Anil Kalsi takes over from Kamal Jadhwani as Vice President, Abbas Moiz and Hitank Shah maintain their old position as Secretary and Treasurer, respectively. The new team have also co-opted four members for an extended team.

Speaking about airlines offering discounts direct to consumers, Ajay Prakash, President, TAFI, says “This is one of the issues we need to seriously tackle. We want to initiate a system whereby all the non-IATA airlines or LCCs should have an agreement with agents before starting to do business. I strongly recommend members to have a formal legal agreement with the airline they are doing business.”

An Air Services Agreement was signed between New Zealand and India in Auckland which is expected to boost bilateral ties in civil aviation between the two countries. According to the MoU, designated airline(s) of New Zealand may operate any number of services with any type of aircraft, with third and fourth freedom traffic rights to/from six points: New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.  

Sharing data on India as a cruise source market, Joel Katz, MD (Australasia), CLIA, says, “India ranks much higher among its Asian counterparts. In 2019, India contributed around 313,000 pax to cruise operations internationally, an increase over the previous year of more than 40%. India’s source market had grown at double-digit rates for consecutive years, putting India behind only Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore in the Asia region, and ahead of Japan and Hong Kong.”

Mani Ganeshan, Global Head of Engineering, Travel Distribution & Centre Head, Amadeus Labs, says, “Personalisation has become the key to success in the industry, and with the integration of IoT, Virtual Reality, Robotics, and AI/ML, we can facilitate this transition seamlessly. The use of data analytics and artificial intelligence allows us to gain insights into guests’ preferences, enabling us to tailor services accordingly and provide recommendations that lead to higher guest satisfaction and loyalty.”  

LCC FlyArysta has announced the launch of the newest route, Delhi-Almaty, from September with fares starting from USD 68. Kazakhstan is a visa-free destination for India citizens. It will currently operate three times a week but plans to increase service to Delhi and other cities in India in the coming months.

Ministry of Tourism is carrying out ranking of the states on the basis of adventure tourism as a strategic pillar of their National Strategy for adventure tourism. This will be done with the key objective to foster competitiveness and encourage states to work proactively towards developing adventure tourism with the overarching objective of promoting sustainable tourism.

Lauding MOT’s the new wedding tourism campaign, Rajeev Jain, Founder & Director, Rashi Entertainment, “We appeal to the MoT to start giving heritage monuments for weddings. Why they have not allowed this is beyond my understanding. We want them to allow weddings at India Gate, Purana Killa, and Hyderabad’s Qutub Minar. This way, weddings will become more experiential and more sought after.”

A Hotelivate 2023 survey data reveals a clear upward trend in the average meeting space as the positioning level of hotels increases. This trend is primarily influenced by hotels with larger inventories having more meeting space (typically the upscale and upper upscale positioning). Globally, luxury positioned hotels tend to have minimal meeting space. That being said, luxury hotels in India, typically in leisure locations, have large meeting spaces to cater to large-scale Indian weddings.

Sharing thoughts on How the aviation industry is looking with much anticipation on where India will go, Gavin Eccles, Managing Partner, GE Consulting & Advisory, says, “The new orders form the two biggest carriers is a wake-up call that India is potentially on the crest of a wave on the future of aviation.  Is it time for us to look at India with more reality, and, is the dream of having the largest aviation market space in the world, getting closer?”