The Passenger Load Factor (PLF) for scheduled domestic carriers in the month of July 2019 has shown declining trend compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season, according to DGCA. Overall, SpiceJet came out on top in terms of PLF amongst all other domestic carriers, with a PLF of 92.4%, while GoAir was a close second with 90.4%. Air Asia was at the third place with a PLF of 89.5%, followed by IndiGo at 86.2%, while Vistara recorded a PLF of 86.2 per cent. Air India recorded a PLF of 79.7 per cent.

Suman Billa (IAS), Joint Secretary, MOT and Chairman ICPB, recently revealed at a meeting that they are taking steps to facilitate easier MICE movement. He adds, “We had already opened the e-Conference visa earlier but that was only open for events that were organised by the government and for the PSUs, so now the door has been opened for the private sector as well. It is open to all private conferences. However, if there are some listed countries, and if you have delegates from those countries you need to take special permission for them. Also, we understand that GST is high, especially if you are dealing with a price sensitive and cost competitive industry like the MICE segment.  We are also trying to get the GST reduced, hopefully we will be able to do away with the 28 per cent slab. We are also planning to have a bidding corpus, if there are conferences where you need  go out and bid for,  to help sweeten the deal with a certain amount of money we will put on the table to better the opportunity. We are thinking this should be done with a collaboration with the states on a matching basis. In the next four to five months, we should be having this ready. ” On ICPB he said, “We have been working on the idea to restructure ICPB for some time. We had commissioned this study a while ago, but we are also picking up from there. We have already changed the constitution and are bringing it in line with the recommendations of this report.”  On the same Chander Mansharamani – Vice Chairman, ICPB added , “The marketing role of …

Sri Lanka Tourism will now focus on tapping the growing wedding market in India, revealed Jeevana Fernando, Assistant Director, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLPB). Speaking at the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, where they organised a workshop for Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) on Ramayana Trail, he said that they are working with wedding planners and the travel agents to promote Sri Lanka as a wedding destination for Indians. He stressed that Sri Lanka has very good hotels, infrastructure and connectivity to be a preferred destination for Indian weddings. 

According to the recent data released by The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-July 2019 were 825.64 lakhs as against 800.40 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering annual growth of 3.15% and monthly growth of 3.01% .

According to Hotel Market Review H1 2019 by Horwath HTL and STR, the city of Chandigarh generated good corporate and MICE demand during the first half of this year (H1 2019). The report also suggests that Mumbai grew rates across all segments; Delhi was somewhat modest and Kolkata struggled with new supply and a slow Q2-19. The all-India results are positive with 4.2% RevPAR growth.

Over the next five years, the Luxury Travel Market will register a 8.5% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach US$ 8460 million by 2024, from US$ 5200 million in 2019 states a recent Reuters report. Promoting this segment, the Travel Luxury show will be being held on September 14-15 in Jaipur and will connect exhibitors to the right buyers who can sign business and help grow business. 60 one-on-one pre-fixed meetings are organised for each participant with the most sought after luxury buyers and get a chance to discuss collaborations and synergies in a disturbance free meetings with the key decision makers.

The Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) jointly with Rajasthan Routes Trails recently organised an educational familiarisation trip for its members to Rajasthan. The trip was hosted by Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd and had 25 participants from cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Satara and Nagpur. The group travelled across Rajasthan starting from Udaipur and covering Kumbhalgarh, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Jaipur. The itinerary included sightseeing of prominent monuments, temples and other attractions and visits to hotels from across various categories. Besides enjoying the gracious hospitality of the sponsoring hotels and the main host Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd, the members also enjoyed some local and traditional activities like camel rides, jeep sand dune safaris, jungle safaris, authentic Rajasthani cuisine and shopping in the local markets. This is the second year in a row that ETAA and Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd collaborated for an educational tour.

Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, along with Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) organised a workshop for OTOAI members on Ramayana Trail, where Jeevana Fernando, Assistant Director, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLPB) gave a presentation on the Ramayana related sites in Sri Lanka to the attendees. The event was chaired by Austin Fernando, High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to India along with Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI. The idea behind the workshop was to position Sri Lanka’s rich Ramayana heritage as a popular pilgrim package and to create awareness among the OTOAI members about locations of the Sri Lanka Ramayana Trail. The OTOAI members gave a positive response towards the workshop and discussed possible itineraries with Fernando for the same.

Accor will be launching two new Grand Mercure properties in India – Grand Mercure Gandhinagar GIFT City that will be launched in October and Grand Mercure Bengaluru at Gopalan Mall that will be launched in December. The Gandhinagar property will have 151 rooms and Bengaluru property will have 206 rooms.

Assam Tourism Department Corporation (ATDC) has started developing a unique concept of tourism called ‘Tea & Tee’ which clubs tea tourism along with golf tourism. This was revealed by Jayanta Malla Baruah, Chairman, ATDC, on the sidelines of a three-city roadshow that travelled to Ahmedabad, Pune and finally Mumbai. The roadshow was a joint effort between Department of Tourism, Govt of Assam in association with India Tourism, Mumbai (Ministry of Tourism, Government of India). Leading the event was Chandan Brahma, Honourable Tourism Minister, Assam, along with 36 tour operators from Assam who were participating in the roadshow. Elaborating on the new concept, Baruah explains, “Assam is a small state but we have more than 22 golf courses that are world-class with nine-hole and 18-hole courses. If we include the small ones, it is more than 30 golf courses. A lot of these are located inside tea estates that also have tea bungalows that are unique to Assam.” Highlighting the growing numbers to the state, he said that Assam has received more than 60 lakh domestic tourists in 2018-19. FTAs in the same period was around 41,000-plus. “We are expecting to cross 50,000 FTAs this year and at least 70-75K in domestic tourists,” he revealed. According to reports, Assam government has sanctioned INR 300 crore to Assam Tourism in order to promote the state as a world-class tourist destination. Sarbananda Sonowal, Chief Minister of Assam, tweeted recently to announce its decision and also revealed that the government is brainstorming to host Filmfare Awards in Guwahati for the first time.