Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has released a comprehensive guide for vaccinated and unvaccinated visitors to ensure streamlined and stress-free travel into the UAE capital. When planning a trip to Abu Dhabi, all inbound tourists are reminded first to check DCT Abu Dhabi’s destination website for latest travel guidelines, which reiterates that a booster (third) vaccination dose is not necessary to enter the emirate. Also, for those entering Abu Dhabi via the Dubai/Abu Dhabi Road entry point, DCT Abu Dhabi has assigned the far-right lane (Lane 1) as a dedicated tourist lane.  Fully vaccinated tourists must present vaccination  proof and a negative 48-hour PCR test obtained from their home country.

India’s leading luxury travel company ATD Journeys Pvt Ltd today announces its new visual identity today, establishing a synergy between the three brands, A Travel Duet, A Travel Circle and A Travel Quest, the new visual identity encapsulates the evolution of luxury travel, adapting to consumers distinct travel needs, taking personalization and service to the forefront, while gearing up for our 10-year anniversary in 2023. The brand’s pastel tones reflect the warmth the company exudes, and its elements are inspired by world design, silhouettes, contemporary art piece, urban and scenic textures, geometric shapes, and tiled patterns. Founder & CEO, Mr Pritish Shah adds “We started back in 2013 and have believed in a slow and steady approach to building our luxury travel brands. Having achieved many milestones over the years we feel the brand is well poised to scale up now. The new brand identities re-enforce our commitment to delivering world class experiences to our guests.” The brand implementation will come live over the coming months with new websites in the pipeline.

Ministry of Tourism is planning a virtual event of about two hours on National Tourism Day on 25th January. Rupinder Brar, ADG, Tourism, shared, “G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and DoNER will be the Chief Guest and Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism, will also be speaking in this online event. We have also invited Secretary, Culture; Secretary, Ministry of Textiles; Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change as well. The celebrations are a little low-key owing to Omicron spread across the country.”

Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister, Himachal Chief Minister has unveiled the Dharamsala Skyway (Dharamsala ropeway) constructed at a cost of Rs 207 crores, which would connect Dharamsala with McLeodganj. It has the hourly capacity of carrying 1,000 persons and would reach Dharamsala to McLeodganj in five minutes instead of usual 20-25 minutes taken by car. The length of the ropeway is 1.8 km. The ropeway has 10 towers and 2 stations at Dharamsala and McLeodganj. One way tariff for travelling in ropeway from Dharamsala to McLeodganj is Rs 300 per person and two way tariff is Rs 500 per person.

Ahmedabad airport will partially remain closed for around 9 hours till May 31 owing to runway re-carpeting work. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport has started scheduled runway re-carpeting work from 17th January  to 31st May, 2022, except on public holidays and Sundays. The work will be carried out from 9am to 6pm.

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO has thanked Puneet Chhatwal, MD & CEO and the entire team at The Indian Hotels Company Ltd. for rolling out the Taj Hotels Promo Code Special Rates for IATO Members. In a statement, he has revealed that each member has been given a Unique Agency Code and booking can be done on line without any hindrances.  Promo Code Special Rates are exclusively for inbound business only and not valid for domestic leisure and are only for FITs.

VisitBritain has launched the ‘GetReadyForBirmingham’ campaign with TravTalk to promote West Midlands, England region, using the upcoming Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games as a hook. Log on to www.GetReadyForBirmingham.com and get clicked at the virtual photo booth offering the most scenic backgrounds in West Midlands, which is playing host to the games.

Rajiv Jalota, Chairman, Mumbai Port Trust, has said that according to a study initiated by them, by 2042-43, a growth of more than 10-12 times with 40 lakh cruise passengers is predicted, out of which over 20 lakh will be domestic cruise passengers. Domestic cruises have bigger potential from infrastructure point of view. It would need smaller vessels and less infrastructural availability.

Sunil C Gupta, Chairman-Northern Region, IATO revealed that there have been two corporate charters on Maharaja Express in December, which was almost 2 years after the luxury train operated in March 2020. “It’s the best train in India on IRCTC. This opens another avenue for incentives to happen on luxury trains. It’s a great idea, which has caught on and more groups are likely to operate in May-June, once things normalise,” he said.

Arvind Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, has said that the role of the state or national authority would be to incentivise the sustainable practices by local stakeholders and also to popularize responsibility and talk about responsible travel amongst tourists. Singh was speaking at the ‘World Majlis: Off the Beaten Path – Travel in the 21st Century’ session during the India Tourism Fortnight at Expo 2020.