Flood warnings and alerts have been issued across the UK as 80mph winds from Storm Brendan are expected to hit the country. The storm is expected to bring rain, gusts and flooding and will also hit some of the same areas which were devastated by the November 2019 floods, which affected families just before Christmas. Areas in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire were hit with delays for commuters, as well as damage to properties and roads in November last year. Coastal areas such as Hull, Hartlepool and Sunderland are due to be some of those who could be hit hardest by flooding in England. The storm hit the island of Ireland on Sunday night and has already affected homes in County Cork, with at least 400 homes seeing power cuts.

Australian authorities urged another mass evacuation across the heavily populated southeast region of Australia, as the return of hot weather fanned huge bushfires, threatening several towns and communities. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews urged communities to be on alert ahead of the extreme conditions. “If you receive instructions to leave, then you must leave,” Andrews said in a televised briefing. “That is the only way to guarantee your safety.” Parts of Kangaroo Island, a wildlife-rich tourist spot off the southeast coast where Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a plea for foreign tourists not to be deterred by the fires, were again evacuated. A third of the island has been destroyed. Thousands have been made homeless and thousands have had to evacuate repeatedly because of the volatility of the fires.  

Thick, unhealthy smog continues to plague much of the Northern provinces in Thailand, with the worst pollution in Lampang province, and Bangkok residents were afflicted by unsafe fine-dust levels in eight districts. The Pollution Control Dept recently reported unsafe levels of particulate matter 2.5 micrometres and less in diameter (PM2.5) at 11 of the 15 air quality measurement stations it operates in the North. In the capital city, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration reported unsafe PM2.5 levels in eight districts — Klong San, Bang Khlaem, Wang Thonglang, Phra Nakhon, Klong Toey, Laksi, Bang Khen and Bung Kum. The capital’s most polluted air was measured at 58mcg in Bang Khen.

RezLive.com, under Travel Designer Group, have announced the launch of ‘Affiliate.Travel’, which would empower travel agencies and professionals managing business travel with their own booking engines without investing in technology. Affiliate.Travel will help Indian travel and tourism industry to create new success avenues with the rise of business travel in the country. Affiliate.Travel, allows travel agents to distribute their own booking platform to their corporate clients for managing reservations. Afilliate.Travel is powered by RezLive.com’s robust booking engine with access to over 250,000+ hotels, 45000+ sightseeing options and 5000+ transfer options. The booking tool is packaged with the innovative features of RezLive.com, complete with a payment gateway for seamless payment collection from corporate clients. Jaal Shah, Managing Director, Travel Designer Group said, “We are confident that Affiliate.Travel will help travel agent community to take business travel segment in India to new global heights.”

EbixCash, a fully owned subsidiary of Ebix, has announced a strategic travel technology partnership with Amadeus to grow its footprint across the Asia-Pacific region and UAE and become a one-stop shop for travel. The partnership will provide EbixCash’s online websites, travel agents and corporations in Asia-Pacific and UAE with greater access to the unrivalled breadth of content offered by the Amadeus Travel Platform , enabling EbixCash to better serve its customers. Robin Raina, Chairman of the Board, President & CEO, Ebix, said, “Our vision is to build an end-to-end travel solution for the industry. We want to empower travel agents and travellers alike. EbixCash today is the largest end-to-end financial exchange in the Indian sub-continent, besides its parent company Ebix being the largest insurance exchange in the world. We are always looking for new ways to stay ahead of our competitors. Partnering with Amadeus gives us access to innovative technology that will allow us to further expand our footprint across the region, especially in India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where we see the greatest potential. Our growth strategy is built on the premise of having an unrivalled ‘phygital’ presence in the region – combining our physical distribution outlets in Southeast Asia with an omnichannel digital presence that allows our seller partners to have access to extensive real-time data and ecommerce solutions across all digital channels. Amadeus’ technology empowers EbixCash to deliver this and truly become a one-stop shop for travel.”  

In a bid to stimulate the India market and achieve its new milestone of doubling numbers by 2030, South Africa has announced an e-visa regime for the India market on a pilot basis. Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, Hon. Minister of Tourism, South Africa, who was in Mumbai to interact with key travel trade partners said, “We want to remove the barriers for the India market to visit South Africa and for this we will introduce an online visa application system from the third week of January this year. This will be on a pilot basis for now and we will look at introducing it formally by April this year.” About 32 key agents attending the morning session where they discussed ideas on how they can push numbers from India.

Seabourn Cruise Line, an ultra-luxury cruise line headquartered in Seattle, Washington has appointed Cruise Professionals as their exclusive General Sales Agent (GSA) for the India market. Sharing details, Nishith Saxena, Founder & Director, Cruise Professionals said, “It gives me immense pleasure to share the news of the appointment of Cruise Professionals as the exclusive GSA for the India market by one of the most luxurious all-suite cruise line, Seabourn. With our partners’ continuous support, Cruise Professionals remains the most diversified cruise representative company in India with a primary focus on B2B distribution. We seek the support of the travel trade in making Seabourn, the cruise line of choice in the luxury segment.” Seabourn pioneered small-ship, ultra-luxury cruising, and continues to represent the pinnacle of that unique style of travel. A fleet of intimate, all-suite ships, carrying between 458 and 600 guests each, sail to the world’s most desirable destinations at their peak seasons. Onboard, guests are served by an award-wining crew numbering nearly as many as the guests, hand-picked and extensively trained to deliver Seabourn’s signature style of thoughtful, personalized and heartfelt hospitality. Seabourn’s ships attract accomplished people who enjoy travelling well and sharing fun and adventures with other interesting people. A great many of them have found the Seabourn cruise experience to be their preferred method of travel, and return regularly to sail with us again and again. Over the last 11 years, Cruise Professionals has been offering a range of attractive cruise holiday options through several premium cruise lines which are distributed through travel agency associates across the country, who in turn offer a diverse & rich mix of cruise & allied services to their HNI clients. The …

To increase the number of foreign tourist arrival, stakeholders in Goa tourism are looking at China to tide over the slump in the arrival of inbound tourists. A six-member delegation from China is scheduled to arrive in Goa to prepare content and guide the Goa tourism department and stakeholders on how to promote the coastal state in Chinese markets, which is virgin territory for the state’s tourism industry. Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) president Savio Messias said that there is a downfall in international tourist arrivals in Goa by almost 30-40 per cent. “There are several factors responsible for this phenomenon, and one of them is shutting down of Thomas Cook, UK, which was flying charters in Goa,” he said. “Promotions in China are different from the rest of the world. They don’t use Facebook, Google or Whatsapp. We will have to design websites in the Chinese language to reach to them,” he said. Goa attracts around four lakh international visitors every year, whose number has gone down significantly in the last two years. Russia and Britain are two traditional markets for Goa.

Indonesia and Maldives expert U & I Holidays has announced that it will soon go online with a dynamic portal. Sharing more details, Ashish Indulkar, Director, U & I Holidays said, “We will start this new decade on a different note. We have been working on our online portal for some time and it is now in pilot stage. It will offer our trade partners faster service and turnaround time, rate parity, and live inventory and quotations. This should be ready by February 2020 and we encourage all our partners to get a login for this.” The company also completes 10 years of operations. It is currently busy conducting a seven-city roadshow in India with its partners from Indonesia.

The national carrier, Air India is hoping to secure additional slots at the London Heathrow airport during 2020, which will help it grow sales and make the airline more attractive to potential suitors. Air India has obtained three additional slot pairs free of cost on a temporary basis in the winter season, apart from the 28 pairs of slots it already has. The airline will operate 11 flights between Mumbai-London Heathrow in February and March 2020.  “On passenger demand, Air India is going to introduce 11 special flights from Mumbai to London Heathrow. This service will start from February 14. We are in discussion with Heathrow airport authorities for this service on a full-year basis and are hopeful our request will be accepted,” said an Air India spokesperson. With over 700,000 annual passengers and 21 per cent market share Air India is the largest carrier on India-United Kingdom routes. Emirates and British Airways are ranked second and third. Currently, the national carrier operates 28 weekly services to Heathrow from Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai. It also flies to Birmingham and London Stansted airports. (Source: Business Standard)