Indian Railways has increased rail fares. The last fare revision over Indian Railways was done in 2014-15. For the passengers travelling in ordinary non-AC classes, there shall be an increase of 1 paisa/PKM (Passenger Kilometer), and of 2 paise/PKM for non AC mail or express trains. For AC classes, the increase is 4 paise/PKM. The increase in fare will be on tickets bought on or after 1st January 2020 and no excess fare (difference of fare) will be charged from passengers who have booked tickets before 1st January 2020. In an official statement, the Ministry of Railways said “In order to expand passenger amenities and facilities at railway stations and trains, it has become imperative to increase the fare marginally without overburdening any class of passengers. Further, the burden of 7th Pay Commission on Indian Railway has necessitated rationalisation of fares.  Fare revision will help in channelising the fast modernisation of Indian Railway. Keeping the affordability concerns of daily commuters, there shall be no fare hike for passengers over suburban sections and season ticket holders. This class constitutes 66% of total passenger segment over Indian Railways. Existing fares of train services like Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, Vande Bharat, Tejas, Humsafar, Mahamana, Gatiman, Antyodaya, Garib Rath, Jan Shatabdi, Rajya Rani, Yuva Expresses, Suvidha and special trains on special charges, AC MEMU (non-suburban), AC DEMU (non-suburban) etc shall similarly be revised to the extent of the above-proposed increase in class-wise fares.”

Ethiopian Airlines is looking to expand in the south Indian market with the launch of its Chennai flights to its capital. Sharing more details is Tadesse Tilahun, Regional Director, India Sub Continent, Ethiopian Airlines, who bid goodbye to the India market after completing a stint of 7.5 years. He says, “We have seen that the south India market has huge potential and is a growing market. To tap this, we have just finalised launch of Chennai operations. We will be starting this from April 3, 2020 with three frequencies per week. We recently launched Bengaluru operations connecting Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa with a direct flight with four frequencies on 787 aircraft. This takes a total of seven flights, daily operations out of the south region to our capital.” Ethiopian Airlines also welcomed its new Regional Director, Tigist Eshetu.

VFS Global has launched mobile biometrics service for customers applying for Italian tourist visa across India, enabling them to submit applications, documents, and enrol biometrics from any location of their choice. This ‘doorstep’ service can be delivered to individuals and groups living in all cities in India. A team of VFS Global staff will visit the customer at the location to collect their visa application and enrol biometric data. They will also be available to assist with any visa application queries. Submissions from large tour groups, business delegates and school trips wishing to travel to Italy, will especially benefit from this  new service, as applicants will not be required to visit a Visa Application Centre to submit their applications. The documents, once processed with the visa decision will be returned by courier to the customer’s desired location. The mobile biometrics service is optional and applicants will have to pay an additional fee. According to the Embassy of Italy in India, 555,000 travellers from India visited Italy in 2019, which indicated a 15 per cent increase over the previous year.

Tourists from India and China can visit Malaysia for 15 days without a tourist visa effective January 1. Throughout 2020, they will be able to enter the country for up to 15 days by using the electronic travel registration and information system – either individually or through travel agencies in their respective countries. However, the tourists must enter and exit Malaysia only through authorised airports or entry points. According to a statement from the government, these tourists will be able to travel to Malaysia three months after registration. Upon arrival, visitors must produce proof of sufficient cash for expenses, credit card or bank card, and produce their travel itinerary in Malaysia. They should also have a valid return ticket. In addition, the 15-day period cannot be extended, and these tourists cannot apply for any other passes under the Immigration Regulations 1963.

With an objective to bring in at least two million foreign tourists to Nepal, the ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign was inaugurated in Kathmandu on January 1.  The launch of the campaign took place in a glittering ceremony alongside Ministerial Conclave 2020 – a high-level gathering of international tourism ministers in Nepal. Based on the theme, Sustainable Tourism through Preservation of Natural and Cultural Heritages, the objective of the conclave was to share initiatives taken by respective countries for sustainable tourism and make joint initiatives to fight against climate change and preservation of Natural/Cultural heritages/products. The conclave was chaired by Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation of Nepal, Yogesh Bhattarai amidst the presence of Chief Guest, Bidya Devi Bhandari, President of Nepal and KP Sharma Oli, the Prime Minister of Nepal. At the closing of the Conclave, the Kathmandu Declaration was also issued. A post-event tour was organised to showcase different destinations of Nepal. Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State (I/C) for Culture and Tourism, Government of India represented India at the Ministerial Conclave 2020 and shared his views on sustainable tourism. Apart from India, tourism ministers and representatives from Nepal, China, Jamaica, Myanmar, Bhutan, Cambodia and Qatar attended the conclave. The Nepal government has committed the year 2020 to the tourism industry of the nation with a vision of making a reasonable brand picture of Nepal as travel and vacationer destination, backing up the tourism foundations of Nepal, enhance the growth of tourism industry and enhance local tourism as a supportable industry.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), has said that MoCA will be issuing expression of interest for Air India disinvestment within next few weeks. Talking about Air India disinvestment, he revealed, “Air India is a national asset and the Maharaja is a great brand. The problem with Air India is that it has an unsustainable debt. We tried two years ago for the same, which proved to be less successful, and we have learnt from the same. It is our endeavour now that we will be issuing an expression of interest in the coming few weeks, hopefully sooner or later, and that the process of privatisation will then follow. We should ensure that we find a buyer and we have to deal with an interim process,” he said.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Civil Aviation has launched the Biometric enabled Centralised Access Control System (CACS) and e-BCAS Project Training Module. The two projects launched are important milestones to enhance security and ease of doing business at airports. Covering 43 Airports of AAI and 5 Joint Venture airports at present, the CACS project is aimed to digitise the employee movement process at the airports. The e-BCAS Project: Training Module is aimed at helping more than 1.5 lac employees of various stakeholders by migrating from manual process of training to digital platform. Puri said “CACS project shall facilitate the ease of processing, enhanced security and prevent unauthorized entry into airport, alert authorities to an attempted intrusion or other irregularities for an immediate response; overall not only leading to ease of doing business, but also an enhanced security system.” CACS project is bound to assist around 2 Lakhs employees of various stakeholders who move in & out of the airport on a daily basis, he added.

Welcoming 164,200 Indian visitors between January-November 2019, Japan has witnessed a 14.2 per cent year-on-year growth in terms of arrivals from India. The East Asian nation also registered a 12.3 per cent hike in the number of arrivals in November 2019 with 14,900 visitors recorded from India. The Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) had set a target to receive 2 lakh visitors from India in 2019.

Air India is going to start bi-weekly direct flights between Bhubaneswar and from January 20, 2020, informed Usha Padhee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation in a tweet. The flight, AI A321 will operate on Mondays and Thursdays at 8:40 am from Bhubaneswar and from Surat at 8:30 am on Fridays and Sundays. The lowest fare quoted on Air India’s website is Rs 4503. In the return direction, the lowest fare for which tickets are on sale is Rs 4213. The flight was a long-standing demand of leaders of Odisha community in Surat. Notably, the diamond city of Gujarat has Odia population of around 2.5 lakh. In August 2019, Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik had requested Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri to consider the demand to start a direct flight between both the city. The flight was earlier expected to start from January 1.

After facing severe setbacks caused by Cyclone Fani in 2019, Odisha Tourism is recovering slowly and has set a milestone target for itself for 2022.  On this, Vishal K Dev, Secretary, Odisha Tourism said, “Through our efforts, we are targeting to receive foreign tourist arrivals of about 500,000, out of a total of 2.5 crore tourist arrivals, by 2022. Our top 10 source markets for FTAs are USA, UK, Japan, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia and the CIS, with the top four markets contributing over 30 per cent of total FTA. We are additionally very keen on promoting Odisha in the Middle East and Southeast Asia now. Sports tourism and sporting events, as well as eco-tourism, are a few segments that have been witnessing the most promising responses from these markets.”