The Regional Office (East) of Ministry of Tourism, Government of India organised a series of three Domestic Road Shows at Bhubaneswar (26th July), Kolkata (28th July) and Bodhgaya (30th July) with a view to catalyse focussed Business to Business (B2B) interactions among hoteliers, tour operators, transport operators and other stakeholders of the venue state and buyers of tourism products and services from all over India. 30 pan-India quality buyers were hosted for this 3 city roadshow ‘Purvaiya 2019’. The roadshow was followed by options of FAM trips.

The Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association (MTOA) has a new team at its helm. The association held its AGM on Sunday, July 28, 2019 in Mumbai. The new committee members have been elected for a term of three years from 2019 to 2022. The new MTOA President is Prabhu Joshi of Heena Tours, and the elected Vice President is Vishwajit Patil of Raja Rani Travels. Chetan Dunakhe of Madhuchanda Travels is the new General Secretary of MTOA and the Treasurer is Rajan Parekh of Arihant Travels. The two Joint Secretarys are Amol Hendre of Eventures and Dhiraj Nishar of Choice Tours.   Speaking about the focus areas for the new team, Joshi said, “MTOA has completed 50 years and to celebrate this milestone we plan to celebrate on a grand scale. The new as well as the old committee will jointly take efforts to organise the 50th year celebration event which will be announced soon. Both our past presidents Sudhir Patil (Veena World) and Atul Mohile (Contour) have taken great efforts to take MTOA to greater heights and their contribution for the association is invaluable.”  

After spending eight years with Rail Europe India, Kunal Kothari started KKR World this January and it currently promotes two rail products from Europe in India. It represents Railtour Suisse and Rhaetian Railways – both popular products in India that were earlier promoted by other companies in India. “My reputation of being a rail expert clearly precedes me,” Kothari says. Speaking about the two products, he adds, “Railtour Suisse is a tour operator in Switzerland and offers packages that includes rail journeys. It has returned to India as it saw huge potential in this market. Meanwhile, Rhaetian Railways’ Glacier Express now has a new high-end product called Excellence Class. This is a compartment with only 20 seats – all window. It serves breakfast followed by a five-course lunch and each course paired with a different wine. This product is already selling well and I request the trade to book as soon as possible during peak season as bookings open 60 days prior to departure.”

Nitin Tripathi has been appointed as the Media Advisor for Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. Tripathi has been a senior media professional and before this role, he was working as Group Consulting Editor for Sambhav Group based in Gujarat. With over 15 years of experience in the media industry, he has been the consulting editor for Gujarat Samachar Group  and Former Editor at Metro TV, apart from working for ETV- Network 18 and Sahara Samay. Owing to his experience in print, broadcast and online media, Tripathi will be focusing on the media strategies for the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Tourism. He is one of the few private professionals being inducted in the Government.    

According to the recent Hotel Momentum India 2019 (HMI), release by JLL, Gujarat is the leading state in  brand signings, while West Bengal leads for hotel openings in first half (H1)2019. Additionally, domestic hotel operators dominated hotel signings over international operators till June 2019 with the ration of 68:32. Importantly, 36 per cent of new signings are conversion of old hotels.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister (IC), Culture and Minister of State (IC), Tourism, has announced that they have increased the opening hours of 10 historical monuments across the country till 9 pm including Rajarani Temple Complex, Bhubaneswar; Dulhadeo Temple, Khajurao; Sheikh Chilli Tomb, Kurukshetra; Safdarjung & Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi; Group of Monuments at Pattadakkal & 7 Gol Gumbaz, Karnataka; Group of Temples, Markanda, Chamursi, Gadchiroli, Maharashtra; Man Mahal, Varanasi; and Rani-ki-Vav, Patan. Now, these monuments will remain open from sunrise to 9 pm for public. Earlier, these monuments used to open from 9 am to 5.30 pm for general public. Patel said that this decision has been made for the benefit of general public/tourists who can visit and appreciate the beauty of such historical sites for long hours. He also said that apart from these 10 monuments, some other historical monuments are also under consideration for long opening hours for visitors.

Goa received 27,19,154 tourists for the period from Jan-May 2019 compared to 26,22,387 for the same period last year, witnessing an increase of 96,767 arrivals. According to statistics released by Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC), the tourism arrivals into the state have increased in the last three years. While in 2016, the tourist arrivals were 63,30,744, in 2017 it went up to 77,85,693 and in 2018 it was 80,15,400. Last year, the increase was minimal owing to the charter flights that stopped operating to Goa, especially from Russia. Earlier this year, the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa had submitted a white paper about the decline in the tourism to Manohar Ajgaonkar, Minister of Tourism, Goa, urging the state government to take urgent steps to address the dip in arrivals.

According to a recent report by Airports Authority of India, all operational airports handled 210.84 thousand aircraft movements and 28.93 million passengers, during the month of June 2019.  Out of this, 5.63 million were international movements and 23.30 were domestic passengers. While, the growth in international passenger movement from last year during the same month was 2.7 per cent, domestic passenger market witnessed 4.6 per cent growth.

Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) has banned single-use plastic in all its hotels. Nikhil Desai, Managing Director, GTDC, says, “GTDC hotels will strive to be plastic free. We have already started with our head office where we have banned all the plastic bottles etc. We have decided that we will reduce or completely do away with anything that has plastic. In the next step, all our hotels will stress on minimise the use of plastic like water bottles, and will shift to eco-friendly options like paper-based products, metal products or recyclable options, instead of going for one-time use plastics. Followed by its success, we will also ask the private players to join us. First we will show that it is possible for us to do it and lead a plastic free life. Once we are successful, we will request them that they should also follow the same.” This initiative comes in line with the bid to achieve the target that the state government has of making the state plastic-free by 2022.

Association of Domestic Tour Operators (ADTOI) is all set to open two new chapters in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Tamil Nadu after its convention, revealed PP Khanna, President, (ADTOI). “Once we are free from the convention, we are planning to start two more chapters, which are almost ready, which will be in MP and Tamil Nadu. By September-October, we will have new entrants in the ADTOI family,” he adds.