Thailand is looking at attracting Indian weddings to its smaller cities, revealed Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, Deputy Governor for International Marketing (Asia and South Pacific), Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). Talking about Indian weddings in Thailand, he said, “Thailand is the number one outbound wedding destination for Indians. Now we have realised that Indian weddings are not restricted only to big cities, but weddings of about 200 people, are now going beyond popular destinations. Phuket and hua Hin are very popular now. There are other smaller provinces also that benefit because some of them have magnificent scenery and unspoilt nature, which the wedding planners look for. In 2019, Thailand received 1.9 million Indian arrivals, which set a new record, claiming that they have new offerings to attract tourists from secondary cities of India.

Forwardkeys analysis of international departure data has shown that International outbound departures are down 18.5% from India in the period 13th Jan – 25th January vis-à-vis the same period last year. Around Jan 13th the virus outbreak issue started spreading and departures to SE Asia and Hong Kong are most impacted. The 18.5% decline is in comparison to the month of December 2019 where International departures from India saw a 2.5% decline.

Onefinerate.com gives its travel agent partners and M!CE bookers easy and direct access to hotels that match their event criteria. RFP is sent instantly to the selected hotels for them, with a prompt, to respond to the booker at the earliest. The OFR operations team ensures that the RFPs are responded by the hotel partners at the earliest. This leads to a shorter ‘selling cycle’ thereby helping both parties to close deals in a shorter window of time. Incremental sales & revenue for hotels with minimal use of their resources adds to their bottom line and at the same time giving the bookers an opportunity secure business faster. Onefinerate.com or OFR is one-of-its-kind travel marketplace designed for both B2C and B2B business. It addresses the key pain points of both the M!CE bookers & hotels like lead generation, access & faster response times. With deep domain knowledge, the OFR team has developed complex algorithms that identify & match the bookers requirements with the availability & rates offered by hotels. With the expanded distribution network, Hotels discover Bookers that they had never worked with and Bookers begin business with Hotels where they had no relationships.

The event was inaugurated by Special Secretary & Financial Adviser of Ministry of Tourism, R K Chaturvedi. Director General (Tourism). Meenakshi Sharma, Addl. Director General (Tourism), Rupinder Brar and other senior officials of the Ministry of Tourism were also present during the inauguration. The theme of the event is ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ and ‘Celebrating 150 Years of Mahatma Gandhi’. The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) has organised Bharat Parv from January 26-31, 2020. Now, an annual affair, the ‘Parv’ will showcase the cuisine and culture of different states of India. Earlier Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General (ADG), Tourism, had said, “We are extremely excited about the upcoming Bharat Parv. The event gets a lot of footfall and attraction from people across the country. We are looking forward to an exuberant response this year, just like the previous ones and we are prepared to showcase the food, arts, culture and also the tableaus that will come from the Republic Day parade.”

The government of Odisha and Gujarat have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) for cross-promotion of tourist sites in both states as well as across India. A formal Memorandum of Understanding mentioning key frameworks and policies will be signed soon after discussions with relevant departments of both the states, said Sachin Ramchandra Jadhav, Director of Tourism, Government of Odisha. The agreement was signed amidst the presence of Union Tourism Minister on the concluding day of a two-day National Tourism Conference 2020 at the Konark Eco Retreat.

In a bid to encourage more footfall at domestic tourism destinations, the Ministry of Tourism has started a unique “Dekho Apna Desh” campaign asking travellers to take a pledge to visit at least 15 different tourism locations in India by the year 2022. The Ministry also said that it will reward tourists, who visit 15 destinations in a year, by funding their expenses. The ministry has planned to back this motivational campaign with some incentives including lucky draws and gifts which may include tickets and travel packages. However, Union Tourism Minister Prahlad Singh Patel has said that the move should not be construed as a monetary benefit, but as an incentive. “The tourism ministry will fund the travel expenses of tourists who visit 15 destinations in the country in a year and submit the photos on our website. Tourists, however, must travel outside their home states to be eligible for contention. We should honour these people as brand ambassadors of Indian Tourism,” he said. To take the pledge, an individual will have to sign up on https://pledge.mygov.in/my-country/. The language for the pledge can be selected between Hindi and English and once the individual recites the pledge, he or she will be given a certificate for the same through email or through mobile text. One can get its printout from the same webpage also.

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) ushers in a new era in 2020 by going completely eco-friendly with its Nagpur edition. The ongoing event which began on Monday and ends on Tuesday, January 28, 2020, at Hotel Centre Point Nagpur has done away with single-use plastic. Sharing this information, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “GPS goes digital and eco-friendly in 2020. We have removed all plastic bottles from the event and have kept water dispensers at all venues. We also have given steel water bottles to all our exhibitors plus top 250-odd buyers that we expect in these two days. All they need to do is complete certain tasks, which we have planned for them. We have also replaced all standees with 50-inch screens that suppliers can use to display all their promos. They only need to carry the promotional material in a USB drive in whatever format they want. The structure itself is made of recycled material.”

The US administration has published new visa rules effective Friday aimed at restricting ‘birth tourism’, in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can have a coveted US passport. Applicants will be denied tourist visas if they are determined by consular officers to be coming to the US primarily to give birth, according to the rules in the Federal Register. Those with medical needs will be treated like other foreigners coming to the US for medical treatment and must prove they have the money to pay for it – including transportation and living expenses. Officials said the rule will not apply to foreign travellers coming from any of the 39 mainly European and Asian countries enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of those countries to come the U.S. without a visa for temporary stays. The rule will only apply to applicants for so-called “B” class visas that permit short-term stays for business or pleasure.

After the city of Toronto issued an extreme cold weather alert last week, temperatures are expected to drop in the evening and overnight in the area. These alerts activate the city’s cold weather response plan, which includes opening more shelter spaces and warming centres for vulnerable citizens. The cold temperatures come on the heels of a major snowstorm last weekend. It is expected that Southern Ontario is going to get hit with another brutal 20 cm of snow this weekend. Other areas have already received above-average snowfall for the season.

Airlines and passengers are on guard against a new flu-like virus that originated in Wuhan, China. Many airlines, including Korean Air Lines, Singapore Airlines’ budget carrier Scoot, Taiwan’s China Airlines and Japan’s ANA, announced they were cancelling flights in and out of Wuhan after authorities announced a lockdown. South Korean budget carrier T’way Air earlier this week postponed the scheduled launch of a new route to the city. On Thursday, 184 flights to/from Wuhan, or 60% of the departures listed for the day, had been cancelled.