AirAsia India will fly daily on the Ahmedabad-Bengaluru route starting November 22 and Ahmedabad-Delhi starting December 20 connecting the commercial capital of Gujarat with other major destinations. An official of AirAsia India, said, “Right now we will be flying daily on these two routes but we might increase the frequency in the future.”

In a recent report released by JLL India, Hotel Momentum India (HMI) Q3 2019, 22 branded hotels have opened in the country with 1474 rooms. However, during the same period, 36 hotels have been signed which will 2867 rooms. Domestic hotel operators dominated the hotel signings over international operators with the ratio of 67:33.

The number of domestic tourists in Himachal Pradesh is expected to grow to 26.97 million by 2023. (CAGR 5.90%). In terms of foreign tourist arrival, the state is expecting the number to 0.66 million by 2023. (CAGR 6.49 %). During the period, the state has planned to highlight adventure tourism, spiritual tourism and eco-tourism, revealed a tourism, hospitality and civil aviation report revealed during the Rising Himachal Global Investor Summit in Dharamsala. Notably, tourism sector’s contribution to state’s GDP is 6.8 per cent.

Inaugurating the Rising Himachal Global Investors’ Meet in Dharamshala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that Himachal is a land full of investment opportunities and possibilities of conference tourism is increasing in the state. Emphasising on tourism sector, Modi said Himachal was set to benefit from the country’s improved ranking in the sector over the years – from 65 in 2013 to 34 – in World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Index. “How this transformation came? We understood the potential of tourism sector, gave e-Visa facility to dozens of new countries. Performance changed and ranking changed. Today, tourism is being promoted as a package in India,” added Modi, referring to various offshoots like eco-tourism, medical tourism and spot tourism. Himachal CM, Jai Ram Thakur said that his government is committed to make sustainable tourism as one of the prime engines of growth in the state by establishing it as a leading global sustainable tourism destination. He informed that the state has signed MoUs on tourism with UAE and other countries.

Tourist destinations in Kerala will be made differently-abled friendly by 2021, informed Kadamapally Surendran, Tourism Minister, Kerala, who revealed in the state assembly that they have identified around 120 tourist spots across the state in the first phase. Of these, 98 destinations have already been made completely differently-abled friendly. A host of facilities, including special parking areas and toilet facilities will be made available. Work on the remaining centres is in progress. Special tour packages for the differently-abled will also be brought out under the responsible tourism initiative, the Minister added.

12% demand of e-procurement in India comes from hospitality sector, according to a recent survey report in the e-procurement space in India by C1 India, The report revealed that 40% of demand for e-procurement comes from government organisations while 10% comes from manufacturing industries, 4% from IT and software companies, 3% from e-commerce companies, 20% from banking entities, 3% from FMCG players, 3% from the telecom industry, 4% from the healthcare sector, and 1% from other industries. Released in line with digital India, the report sights some interesting findings on the changing trends and talks about the growth & development in the procurement industry in India.

The percentage shares of top 15 source countries availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during September, 2019 were highest from China (11.87%), followed by USA (9.91%), UK (8.84%), Malaysia (6.09%), Australia (4.72%), Germany (3.95%), France (3.75), Israel (3.26%), Canada (2.68%), Singapore (2.67%), Spain (2.59%), Japan (2.52%), Oman (2.31%), Italy (2.12%) and Indonesia (2.07%), according to statistics revealed by Ministry of Tourism.

Indian travellers are at the top in wanting to take on long trip to a destination in 2020 that offers all their favourite activities close by, with 72% of them wanting the same, according to Booking.com. 71% of Thai travellers saying they want to go on one long trip to a destination that has all of their favourite activities and sights close together, followed by 68% of Indonesians wanting the same, ranking at second and third position respectively. 

Data from the Annual Travel Monitor 2019 Final Edition (ATM) released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) last month shows that Asia continued to dominate the supply of international visitor arrival numbers (IVAs) into Asia Pacific in 2018, generating close to 63% of the 696.5 million IVAs into the region. In percentage growth terms between 2017 and 2018, Africa outbound into Asia Pacific had the strongest annual increase at over 13% year-on-year, followed by Europe at almost 11% and then Asia at 7.3%. The nondescript ‘Others’ category increased by 7.5% in 2018, year-on-year.

IndiGo has signed a one-way codeshare agreement with Qatar Airways, allowing Qatar to place its code on IndiGo flights between Doha and Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, revealed that they are looking at making it a two-way codeshare in future, and even grow the relationship further with IndiGo. Baker revealed that they are not denying a possibility of buying a stake in IndiGo, since they have been interested in the same for a long time. However, there is no progress in the same as yet.