Wallonia in India (AWEX Mumbai), Visit Brussels and Wallonia Belgium Tourism jointly organised a destination training workshop in association with Maratha Chamber of Commerce Industry and Agriculture and TAAP in Pune recently. The presentation highlighted the hidden gems of Belgium. Introducing Wallonia to the audience, Emmanuelle Timmermans, Trade and Investment commissioner from AWEX, said, “We realised that even regular visitors to Belgium are not always aware of some of the hidden gems of Belgium. One of those is the new sensational city of Dinant, which was voted one of Europe’s Best Destinations in 2019.” She highlighted the most popular tourist attractions in Wallonia. Talking on Belgium’s promotional goals for 2019 and 2020, Timmermans said, “We would like to attract an increased number of visitors from India to our Region. Wallonia tourism is truly hidden as many truths are unknown to the world. Tourism trends are changing now, tourists believe more in unique experiences such as amazing activities, beautiful memories, mysterious places. Wallonia is one destination for all generation group and for all type of tourism interests let it be, FIT, Luxury, family, MICE or educational tourism, Wallonia has lots to offer to everyone.”

Srijit Nair has recently joined Rail Europe as the Regional Sales Director, Greater India (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan). He will be based in Mumbai. He worked previously as the General Manager – Sales, heading the NRI business (International Markets/Non-Resident Indian) in the B2B and B2C sales structure at Thomas Cook India Ltd. Prior to that role, Nair was responsible for leading the B2B business channels for the Western and Southern regions at Thomas Cook India. He was actively involved in building the franchisee model, new acquisitions of franchisee partners and with a focused approach on B2B space specially with the Preferred Sales Agents and the travel agents. Nair has done Masters in Marketing Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies as well as received a post graduate diploma in Tourism & Travel from Garware Institute, Mumbai and Bachelor of Management Studies from University of Mumbai.

Travelport has announced a new agreement with Airport Authority Hong Kong (AA) to promote the multi-modal connectivity services at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) to travel buyers in Asia, Europe and North America. HKIA is one of the busiest passenger airports across the globe connecting to over 220 destinations through over 120 airlines. In 2018, HKIA handled 74.7 million passengers . As a regional hub and a multi-modal transport center, it offers travelers extensive land and sea connections to cities throughout the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which includes Macao, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and beyond. The digital media solutions provided by Travelport will help HKIA offer a hassle-free experience to passengers traveling into China. The technology allows overseas travel buyers – such as travel agencies and travel management companies – to pre-book the airport’s multi-modal transport services for their customers in 18 markets from across the world. The new digital solutions will also allow HKIA to embrace new business opportunities by targeting nearby airport destinations and promoting its multi-modal, multi-stop connecting services. Commenting on the agreement, Steven Yiu, Deputy Director, Service Delivery, AA said: “Travelport facilitates the engagement of the global agency community and attracts travelers to enjoy our world-class facilities and services. Our partnership will enable travel agencies to offer their customers a seamless journey to various destinations in the Mainland via HKIA.” Jason Clarke, Travelport’s Senior Vice President and Global Head of Travel Partners, added: “HKIA is uniquely positioned in a vibrant region and connects a cluster of fast-growing cities. We are pleased to secure this long-term partnership, which will see us further promote the offerings of the airport to travel buyers and travelers across the world through …

Accor has recently announced the advent of its Raffles brand in the Indian market. Speaking more on the expansion, Jean-Michel Cassé, COO– India and South Asia, Accor, says, “Today we have 51 properties in India and one in Colombo, 52 in the region. In total, Accor has the presence of 9,500 rooms and we are present in 22 cities. What we have in the pipeline today is 25 per cent of our current inventory that will come in the next 3-5 years. Hopefully, we will also see new brands in this pipeline.”

Offering in-depth insights into the modern traveling pattern of Indians, Paytm Travel has released its ‘Travel Trends 2018’ report. The report has revealed that Indians generally love to travel on a budget, while tier II and tier III cities contributed to 60% growth in travel, and 92.9% booking were made via smartphone apps. Paytm Travel’s Travel Trend 2018 report also revealed that metro cities broke the record for all three modes of travel. Namma Bengaluru turned out to be the most travelled destination by Bus, whereas, Delhi topped the list for flights and train-based travel. Similarly, the top 5 most searched international destinations by Indians included Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore, Kathmandu, and Bali. The report indicates flight and bus travels are the cheapest for Tuesdays and are most expensive for Sundays. The report also claims that flight tickets must ideally be booked 28 days in advance to save extra bucks by avoiding last-minute surges. In India, bus travellers opt for last-minute bookings due to the availability of multiple options and tickets. Flight travellers generally book their tickets 13 days in advance. Train travellers, on the other hand, book their tickets more than 1 month in advance. Abhishek Rajan, Head of Travel Marketplace, Paytm Travel said, “We are driven by the vision of providing the best customer experience to all inbound and outbound travellers in India. This cannot happen without having the complete visibility of all macroscopic and microscopic trends taking place within the industry. So, the aim of conducting this research is to gain visibility of all such developments and help our customers take informed decisions to make the most out of their bookings.” Top visited routes having low fares had …

Indigo has started operating its domestic flights from the T2 terminal of Mumbai International Airport. Out of the 20 flights, nine originate from Mumbai to destinations such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Nagpur, Vadodara. Airline’s all other domestic flights will continue to operate from Terminal 1 and International flights from Terminal 2 of the airport. “As these new flights, will be operating from Terminal 2, Mumbai, please ensure you check your flight number and terminal before you leave for the airport,” IndiGo said in a statement. For Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore and Nagpur, IndiGo has planned to introduce two new flights. The airline will start operating 2 additional flight on Mumbai-Nagpur route from May 4 and 4 additional flight on Bengaluru-Mumbai- and Hyderabad-Mumbai route. With a fleet size of 218 plans, Indigo operates about 1,300 flights on a daily basis to 53 domestic and 17 international destinations.

The Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) has signed an MoU with the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) to boost outbound traffic numbers from India to South Korea with a special focus on MICE. With this MoU, OTOAI will prioritise South Korea as a focus country for 2019. This took place on the sidelines of Tourism Travel Mart being held in Mumbai. Nine DMCs and four regional tourism organisations were participating in the mart apart from Korea Film Commission and Seoul Film Commission.

The domestic market of India continues to perform strongly, again registering double digit growth over the year to February, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA). China and Russia topped the growth chart with 11.4 per cent and 10.1 per cent year-on-year growth rates respectively. This marks the 54th consecutive month of double-digit domestic RPK growth for India. A generally solid economic backdrop, combined with continued growth in the number of airport pairs have all contributed to this sustained growth performance.

Narrowbodies account for ¾ of the total current fleet, with widebodies contributing a further 10 per cent, as per a recent ‘Project Rupee Raftaar’ report by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The remainder consists primarily of turboprops and regional jet aircraft. Reflecting the relative size of the domestic and international markets, the composition of the current inservice fleet is heavily tilted towards narrowbody aircraft. India, which has the third-largest aircraft order book (including wide-body and narrow-body aircraft) after the US and China, now has more narrow-body orders than China, CAPA India said in one of its reports.

The year 2019 is expected to outpace 2018 with a total of 105 new branded hotel openings with a total key count of 8,574 keys, according to a ‘India Hospitality Industry Review’ report by HVS ANAROCK. The effort to open new hotels, big or small, requires hotel operators to coordinate large amounts of pre-opening effort. So, while domestic operators opened 65 hotels of the total 134 openings in 2018, which represents nearly half of all the openings in terms of key counts, domestic operators represented only 32 per cent of the total 7,215 keys. Bengaluru witnessed the largest number of new openings by a large margin, in part due to the opening of the Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield Hotel & Convention Centre with 360 keys.