The Great Barrier Reef has suffered another mass bleaching event – the third in just five years. Warmer sea temperatures – particularly in February – are feared to have caused huge coral loss across the world’s largest reef system. Scientists say they have detected widespread bleaching, including extensive patches of severe damage. But they have also found healthy pockets. Two-thirds of the reef was damaged by similar events in 2016 and 2017.

The Delhi government has announced a Rs100-crore scheme to introduce the national capital as a tourism brand to domestic and foreign tourists and create news jobs in the sector. Presenting the Budget in the Delhi Assembly, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Delhi has the resources to become the country’s tourism capital. “But due to lack of branding and information, most tourists take Delhi as a transit point, because of which tourists coming to Delhi spend (only) a day on an average here. Whereas, in cities like London, Singapore and Tokyo, a tourist spends three days on an average,” he said. A tourist visiting Delhi should spend at least two days on an average. Only a difference of a day will create millions of new jobs and opportunities for economic growth, Sisodia said. Under the new scheme “Branding Delhi”, Delhi tourism will be re-branded and the city will be introduced as a tourism brand in the country and abroad to domestic and foreign tourists, he said. The AAP government also proposed “Campaign for Communal Harmony” in the wake of the recent violence in northeast Delhi that left 53 dead and over 200 injured. “The government is working towards making the national capital”s dynamic structure an important part of Delhi”s tourism. Last year, we celebrated Diwali in an environment-friendly manner without bursting firecrackers and organised a laser show with cultural activities. It was widely appreciated,” he said. ‘Delhi Ki Diwali’ will be celebrated this year too. Also, a new festival called “Purvanchal Utsav” is proposed to be celebrated, the deputy chief minister said. Source: PTI

On 25th March 2020, a Lufthansa A380 aircraft departed at 12:45 pm CET as repatriation flight LH9912 from Frankfurt to Delhi. It arrived at around midnight at Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi. The return flight, LH343 to Frankfurt, departed from Delhi at 1:30 am local time. It brought German citizens back home at a time when no international flights were operating to and from India and most air traffic worldwide had come to a halt. “Carrying out repatriation flights and bringing people back home is the responsibility that Lufthansa Group airlines bear being part of the critical infrastructure in the home countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium said George Ettiyil.” For us being able to operate the repatriation flight with the A380, it was very helpful that Indian authorities decided to extend visas of foreigners in India last week.” Since 14 March, Lufthansa Group airlines, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa and Eurowings have flown about 220 special flights back to the home countries of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, involving more than 40,000 holidaymakers. Over 70 further flights are already in preparation. Clients are and have been tour operators, cruise operators (mainly return flights from the Caribbean, Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and North Africa) and the German Federal Government (Federal Foreign Office). Wide-body aircraft, namely the Boeing 747, A380 and Airbus A350 are being used to provide as much capacity as possible on these return flights. “These are challenging times for everyone – we are in this together with the Indian people,” said Ettiyil. “Together with them, we are looking forward to the day when regular travel will return to their country.”

Cross Hotels & Resorts is hosting an introductory webinar on Friday, March 27 at 3.30 PM for the travel trade fraternity to educate them on the brand and its offerings. Cross Hotels is one of the fastest growing brands in South East Asia with 24 properties across Thailand, Vietnam and Bali. For more information and to register, please contact Harish Chhetri at 9650196521 or email to sales@crosshotelsandresorts.in.

Up to 75 million jobs are at immediate risk in global Travel & Tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). The alarming figure, based on research from WTTC, shows a punishing Travel & Tourism GDP loss to the world economy of up to US$2.1 trillion in 2020. The latest projection of a 50% increase in jobs at risk, in less than two weeks , represents a significant and worrying trend, with an astounding one million jobs being lost every day in the Travel & Tourism sector, due to the sweeping effect of the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis by WTTC, which represents the global Travel & Tourism private sector, also exposes the depth of the crisis for individual regions. Asia-Pacific is expected to be most heavily impacted with up to 49 million jobs at risk throughout the region, representing a loss of nearly US$800 billion to Travel & Tourism GDP. The latest figures also suggest that in Europe, up to 10 million jobs in Travel & Tourism are at risk, totaling a loss of nearly US$552 billion.   The Americas are also expected to be hit hard by this crisis, with the United States, Canada and Mexico expected to lose up to US$570 billion combined, with nearly seven million jobs in Travel & Tourism at risk. Other countries expected to be hit hard by this crisis include Brazil, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, Indonesia and India.   Gloria Guevara, WTTC President & CEO, said: “The number of jobs now at risk in the global Travel & Tourism sector is a staggering 75 million, bringing real and profound worry to millions of …

According to a recent report by HVS, the overall Occupancy in branded hotel segment in 2020 is estimated to decline by 16.7-20.5 percentage points over 2019, while ADRs are estimated to decline by 7-8% for the year. As a result RevPAR, will witness a significant decline of 31% to 36.2%. The report also mentions that the hospitality industry is undoubtedly one of the biggest casualties of the COVID-19 outbreak as demand has declined to an all-time low.

Calculating the risk of COVID-19 on the Indian hospitality sector, Ajay Bakaya, Managing Director, Sarovar Hotels, says, “We were sailing till February just fine but as soon as this pandemic broke irrevocably, our industry was the first one to get hit. For March, the RevPAR of Sarovar has gone down by 50%, April will decline by 100% and for the calendar year 2020, we are anticipating a dip of at least 12-15%. This of course is subject to change according to how situation folds itself in the coming months.”

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA)’s latest analysis, the annual passenger revenues will fall by $252 billion if severe travel restrictions remain in place for three months. That represents a 44 per cent decline compared to 2019. This is well-over double IATA’s previous analysis of a $113 billion revenue hit that was made before countries around the world introduced sweeping travel restrictions. Sharing his remark, Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO, IATA said, “Failure to act now will make this crisis longer and more painful. Some 2.7 million airline jobs are at risk. And each of those jobs supports a further 24 in the travel and tourism value chain. Some governments are already responding to our urgent calls, but not enough to make up the $200 billion needed,” he said. In urging more government action, de Juniac demanded Direct financial support by government to passenger and cargo carriers to compensate for reduced revenues and liquidity attributable to travel restrictions imposed as a result of COVID-19, loans, loan guarantees and support for the corporate bond market by the Government or Central Banks and rebates on payroll taxes paid to date in 2020 and/or an extension of payment terms for the rest of 2020, along with a temporary waiver of ticket taxes and other government-imposed levies.

The Ministry of Railways is considering barring private vendors and agents from booking train tickets for passengers. Railways Minister Piyush Goyal has said that they are no longer needed when tickets can be booked by anyone on a mobile. “I think vendors and private agents are not needed, those who need help in buying tickets can go to “common service centres” which are run by the government,” he said in Lok Sabha, adding that he was considering barring them. Reacting to this, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) in a letter to the minister said that the proposal will affect employment generated by over 3 lakh agents network and also the revenue of IRCTC. “We would like to highlight that there are more than 100 service providers offering these services through 3,00,000 agent networks. The closure of their services will not only impact the investments are done and employment generated by these agents but will also affect the revenue of IRCTC, as there are many people in India who need assistance for booking the tickets,” Subho Ray, President, IAMAI said in the letter. IAMAI urged the minister to postpone the discussion on abolition of the service provider system of IRCTC considering the current situation around coronavirus which requires social distancing.

In a statement, the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) said that the Ministry of Finance has deferred the implementation of the TCS amendments proposed in the Union Budget 2020-21 till 1st October 2020. Making amendments in the Finance Bill 2020 before getting in passed in the Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister decided to defer the implementation of the much talked about TCS provisions to charge 5 per cent income tax on the sale of overseas tour packages and foreign exchange remittances from the buyer by the virtue of Section 206C under the Income Tax Act. OTOAI further said it will continue this dialogue and strive for the complete rollback of TCS altogether by highlighting its adverse impact on Indian outbound operators and how it would render us uncompetitive given the competitive landscape which also includes foreign players. OTOAI will keep addressing various issues concerning overseas travel with the respective ministries for the benefit of the outbound tour operators and its members.