Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, during their 36th convention in Gandhinagar announced that their next convention will be held in September 2022 at Bengaluru. They have even finalised their 2023 convention in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. He also revealed that they have got offers from many other states, one of which is J&K, where they might have a small event very soon.

The 6th edition of Travel MICE Show 2021 was held on 16th & 17th December 2021 at Surya Hotel, New Delhi. The 2-day event witnessed a strong attendance from 25 suppliers and 45 corporates, who then forged long-term business associations through pre-arranged appointments. The theme of this year’s event was “Connect, Converse, Collaborate”. The industry dignitaries shared their options on how the industry could work to enhance the ease of doing business in the panel discussion held at the event.

Swiss International Airlines will be restoring the services from Mumbai to Zurich in India from 12th January 2022. The flights were suspended in view of pandemic developments earlier. “Provided all necessary approvals are obtained, we indeed plan to resume the Mumbai-Zurich route on 12 January 2022”, revealed Swiss International Airline official. The airline is to further expand its range of scheduled services next summer and will be adding six new destinations to its European route network.

FHRAI has submitted a comprehensive list of recommendations on the upcoming Union Budget 2022-23 to the Finance Ministry outlining some of the much-needed expectations of the Hospitality industry. “We are requesting that hotels & tourism related sectors be included in infrastructure projects listed in the NIP set up under the DFI by the Ministry of Finance for promoting infrastructure funding”, said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI.

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G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister for Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region – DoNER, reviewed projects of Haryana and Punjab and functioning of the Central and State Institutes of Hotel Management. He also reviewed the projects under the Ministry of Culture and Archaeological Survey of India. Emphasis was given upon the need to work together to give way to effective development and promotion of tourism.

Tourism remains a strong growth market in the long term. It benefits from overarching social trends that will continue to intensify in the coming years. In the financial year 2021, 5.4 million guests travelled with TUI. Booking level for the 2022 financial year are encouraging at 4.1 million bookings, revealed report. “Whenever restrictions are lifted, demand picks up immediately. Currently, customers are booking later and at short notice”, said CEO Joussen.

Global airlines blasted governments on Wednesday for worsening the Omicron scare through snap border measures and “rip-off” virus testing regimes, and urged politicians to let travellers make their own decisions based on scientific data.Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, predicted “knee-jerk” border restrictions resulting from the coronavirus variant would ease soon, but it was too early to say whether holiday travel would be disrupted.

In a meeting of the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Minister of Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, said that India’s scheduled airlines have a fleet of 710 aircraft which is projected to grow to over 1000 aircraft in the next five years. With a new liberalized helicopter policy announced on 8th October, 2021, a significant increase in India’s helicopter fleet is expected over the next five years.

Speaking at the second of a series of trade update webinars on 7th December titled ‘Welcome Back to Singapore,’ GB Srithar, Regional Director, India, Middle East and South Asia, Singapore Tourism Board, said, “We are delighted that six daily VTL flights commenced on 29th November between India and Singapore. This is a big step towards promoting tourism as we ‘Chart Our Pathways To Tourism Recovery’ together with our travel trade partner-friends and welcome back Indian visitors.” The VTL enables fully-vaccinated travellers from India to visit Singapore without the need for quarantine, subject to applying for a Vaccinated Travel Pass (VTP) and complying with safe travel measures. The two sessions of webinars on 25 November and 7 December jointly organised by the STB, Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport Group, were well attended by more than 2,000 travel agents from the travel fraternity across India.  This showed the strong interest to promote Singapore as one of the top of mind destinations among the consumers in India.